Why the best leaders get the worst feedback
It’s mid-year review season. Across organizations, managers sit down with senior leaders and HR business partners to reflect, recalibrate, and plan ahead. For many, this includes gathering 360-degree feedback—an opportunity to understand how they show up and where they can grow.
But here’s a paradox worth considering: the best leaders often receive the worst feedback. Not because they are failing, but because they are learning.
Great leaders don’t seek comfort in praise. They seek opportunities to grow in critique. When effective leaders go out to collect feedback, they don’t limit themselves to friendly voices or known allies. They don’t ask safe questions designed to elicit socially acceptable answers. They ask about what really matters: their behavior, blind spots, and unintended impact.
In other words, the best leaders create conditions for honest, specific, and sometimes uncomfortable feedback. As a result, what comes back can appear—at first glance—more negative, more critical, and even more uncertain than that of their less effective peers.
Compare this to the more cautious leader—the one who asks only those they trust, poses vague or leading questions, and receives feedback that reads more like a character reference than a behavioral assessment. It may look glowing on paper but is often shallow in substance.
This dynamic parallels an insight from the world of healthcare.
Organizational psychologist Amy C. Edmondson found that the best hospitals report more mistakes—not fewer. Why? Because they have cultures of psychological safety. People in those hospitals feel free to speak up, call out errors, and surface problems without fear of blame. Importantly, these hospitals aren’t making more mistakes—they’re just more honest about them. And that honesty is what allows them to learn faster and improve more reliably.
The same dynamic applies to leadership. Strong leaders don’t receive more negative feedback because they’re performing poorly. They receive it because they’ve created the conditions for candor.
So, as you go through your own mid-year reflection, don’t judge the quality of your leadership by how “positive” your feedback sounds. Instead, ask yourself:
Did I invite honesty, even when it was hard?
Did I hear things I didn’t expect—or didn’t want—to hear?
Did I ask about my behavior, not just my intentions?
If the answers are yes, you’re probably on the growth path. Growth doesn't come from flattery; it comes from feedback that stretches us.
Courageous leaders ask the hard questions, welcome the hard truths, and get the “worst” feedback… because they want to be their best.