3 Steps to Follow When You Are Criticized and Blamed
Category: Blog
![3 Steps to Follow When You Are Criticized and Blamed](https://www.mindsetgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Criticized-and-Blamed.png)
June 11, 2024 | Mark Altman
Scroll to the bottom for a downloadable PDF.
What is your default reaction when someone criticizes or blames you?
❓ Do you meet the person with the same angry tone?
❓ Does your body language become closed off or maybe even aggressive?
❓ Do you match their word choice and blame the person back?
When leaders receive feedback from an employee, they often become defensive because it can feel like a personal critique or a challenge to their competence and authority. This reaction is often rooted in the default human tendency to protect one’s self-esteem and self-image. If the feedback is unexpected or accusatory, the instant reaction is often to defend, deflect, and deny.
This is where leaders earn their money. It is easy to say, “Don’t react,” but how do you do it? Follow this three-step approach to de-escalate the situation while making it productive.
Step 1: “Thank you for sharing and feeling comfortable enough to bring that to me.”
Why should you say this? Emotions are information. Would you rather know or not know how someone is feeling? Nothing good comes from bottling it up. Use empathy and appreciation to disrupt the employee’s thought process while de-escalating immediately.
Step 2: “I didn’t know you felt that way.”
People sometimes assume that the other person knows what is going on at all times. That may not be the case. Adjust this wording to reflect the truth in your scenario.
Step 3: “Can I ask where that came from or what happened to make you feel that way?”
Gain clarity. This is your time to gather as much information as possible to really understand what is going on in order to identify the root cause of the issue. What, why, and how questions are incredibly important here.
You can’t control others, but you can control yourself. What can you do to understand the person’s point of view and gather more information while also de-escalating the situation?
Although the conversation doesn’t stop here, these three steps are crucial to creating a dialog between two people rather than a shouting match that goes nowhere.
Contact us to help problem solve a situation you are struggling with at your company!
Download the PDF for the three-step process here.
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