When you hear the word, feedback, what comes up for you?

Most of us do not have a neutral relationship with feedback. It’s tangled up with our past experiences, workplace power dynamics, cultural expectations, and–importantly–our early relational wounds.

But at its core, feedback is a deeply relational act that has the power to help us unburden rather than re-wound.

Which is why it’s so frustrating that feedback in leadership and workplace culture is so often done without care, rendering the process performative, detached, and isolating.

Some of the constraints that can hamper authentic feedback in the workplace are necessary and protective, but it feels like we’ve lost the plot for the role and purpose of feedback, and in some cases, have abandoned it altogether.

But it is possible to navigate these complex systems intentionally and with clarity. We can make feedback a tool for accountability, care, and growth that helps leaders strengthen their self-awareness and be better advocates for their teams.

My guest today helps us unpack how leaders can cultivate a feedback culture that allows for mistakes, growth, and realignment.

Therese Huston, Ph.D., is a Cognitive Neuroscientist and Faculty Development Consultant at Seattle University. She was the founding director of the university’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and is now a consultant for its Center for Faculty Development. Her latest book Sharp: 14 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life with Brain Science is out now from Mayo Clinic Press.

 

 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why how and where feedback is delivered matters just as much for positive feedback as negative
• Strategies for making feedback a supportive and generative dialogue
• Why it’s critical to allow others space to process your feedback before you start problem solving
• How starting with your authentic positive intentions can make others more receptive to feedback
• Why it’s worth ending the conversation by checking in about their takeaways
• How typical feedback can perpetuate disparities in the workplace, and steps leaders can take to change those dynamics
• A tip from Therese’s new book to help manage stress and difficult conversations

 

Learn more about Therese Huston, Ph.D.:

• Website
• Twitter: @ThereseHuston
• Connect on LinkedIn
• Let’s Talk: Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower
• Sharp: 14 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life with Brain Science

 

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• The Unburdened Leader on Substack
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

 

Resources:

• Principles: Life and Work, Ray Dalio
• Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, Kim Scott
• Nine Lies about Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World, Marcus Buckingham, Ashley Goodall
• The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever, Michael Bungay Stanier
• Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well Douglas Stone, Sheila Heen
• The 90 second life cycle of an emotion
• Leslie K. John
• Personality feedback is holding certain groups back – Textio
• Job Burnout At 66% In 2025, New Study Shows
• EP 123: Befriending Your Nervous System: Building Capacity for Regulation with Deb Dana
• The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon
• Adele – Skyfall
• Shrinking

 

Transcript:

Therese Huston: So the better mindset is side with the person. As a feedback giver, it’s like you’re swinging your chair around to their side of the table, “The problem’s over there, and we’re looking at it together. Okay. Okay, given that, given that problem, that challenge, what are the options,” right? “What’s workable? What’s not workable?” And it really makes the other person feel seen and supported. It doesn’t mean you stay silent. It doesn’t mean you brush the problem away as it’s not a big deal. Instead it’s like, “I care about you. I want you to succeed, but this is getting in your way.”

[Inspirational Intro Music]

Rebecca Ching: Hey, everyone! I’m so excited for you to hear the latest Unburdened Leader episode. Before we get into it, I just want to thank you, one, for being here, of course, but also encourage you, if you haven’t done so yet, to leave a rating, a review, and share this episode and this show with folks you think may benefit from it. Those kinds of shares and those ratings, they really help. You know, all the algorithms, the systems in place help push this show in front of new eyes, and we’d love your help getting this show exposed to some fresh ears. So thank you for your help with that!

Okay, so about this show, I’m gonna say a word. I’m gonna say a word, and I want to see how it lands with you, okay? When I say the word “feedback,” what comes up for you? Is it a little dramatic? And I don’t mean to be hyperbolic, but feedback, in my own story and with a lot of people I work with, giving and receiving it, comes with a lot of angst. I don’t know about you, but do you welcome feedback or do you brace for it, or does it feel like something you just have to survive? On this note, think about the last time that you gave or received feedback.

2:04

What do you notice in your body as you connect with those memories? Do you feel like a pit in your stomach or maybe a twinge of defensiveness coming up to the surface, or maybe a memory of a recent exchange that popped up and left you feeling uncertain or misunderstood or even hurt? Maybe you feel energized and grateful from what you’re remembering. All I know is in today’s world, there are so many of us that are on edge, exhausted, walking on eggshells unsure of who to really trust with what and when and how. Feedback has become more than a tool for growth. It’s a deeply relational act and one that carries the weight of our stories, our systems, and our scars.

I’m Rebecca Ching, and you’re listening to The Unburdened Leader, the show that goes deep with humans who navigate life’s challenges and lead in their own ways. Our goal is to learn how they address the burdens they carry, how they learn from them and become better and more impactful leaders of themselves and others.

Most of us don’t have a neutral relationship with feedback. I know that’s the case, at least, for many of my clients and definitely me. Feedback’s often tangled up with past experiences, workplace power dynamics, cultural expectations and realities, and especially early relational wounds. So many of us have learned to brace for feedback instead of receiving it because of our stories and our lived experiences, or we’ve learned to give feedback in ways that feel transactional, robotic, even weaponized rather than connective. But feedback at its core is a deeply human and deeply relational act.

4:04

When we hold that truth with care, it has the power to unburden rather than rewound. And still, so much of what I see and hear about feedback and leadership and workplace cultures leaves me frustrated. It’s often not done with care. I think there’s intention but not a whole-person kind of care intention.

More often than not, there are so many constraints that people feel inauthentic and cold, the giving of it and receiving of it. Sometimes these constraints are necessary and protective. I get it. I’ve worked with a lot of folks in very high-stakes conversations where it’s not the most human experience because of the needed constraints, right? But I feel like we’ve lost the plot on the role and impact of feedback because I still hear from so many people that they feel there’s either too much pressure to get it right or that the feedback’s dismissed, rushed through like a task on a checklist. I mean, folks are busy, like really, really busy. This is such a vulnerable experience, right, and the experience becomes performative, disconnected, and stripped of presence.

One of the most common complaints I hear from leaders I work with is about being asked to fill out their own feedback. You know, many people get to this place where they have to kind of say, you know, “What have you done well? Where are your growth areas?” and “List your successes this year,” and all of that stuff. And I think there’s value in self-reflection, even though it may feel tedious. [Laughs] But what they’re often naming is really a loss of relational context. They don’t maybe feel seen or supported. They don’t feel connected to the person or the systems that they’re working in offering the feedback. It becomes an isolated exercise rather than a mutual exchange.

6:07

I will say, I do hear from some leaders I really respect, the ones that have found a way to make feedback work for them and their teams, and I know it can be done well because I see how they navigate complex systems with clarity and intentionality, right? I hear about their process of filling out the forms and thinking strategically with the language they use so that their direct reports will be more open to getting raises or promotions or an award or an accolade, and these same leaders, when they’re working with their supervisors, how they want to tee up that experience so they can learn and grow too. It’s a really incredible thing to witness and hear about, and fortunately, so many of these leaders are the folks I get to coach, and they give me hope! And I know their inner work and skill upleveling that they’ve done to become less reactive and people pleasing and fearful of criticism or pushback and just more present with this experience and really sensitive to what they need and what their team members and their supervisors need. But sadly, I think they’re still the exception and not the rule.

So many others are left shut down around feedback. They’re navigating systems burdened by outdated practices, the legal and ethical constraints, or cultures that simply don’t prioritize relational leadership. Sometimes feedback is avoided altogether, not because people don’t care but because they’re overextended, they’re burned out or afraid of causing harm. And we can’t talk about feedback without talking about power, without talking about trauma, or the systems that shape how we give and receive it. So this is what we’re talking about today, and I am thrilled to introduce you to one of my new favorite thought leaders and academics!

8:03

I’m so excited to introduce you to Dr. Therese Huston who is a cognitive neuroscientist and faculty development consultant at Seattle University. She was the founding director of the university’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and is now a consultant for a Center for Faculty Development. She is the author of Let’s Talk: Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower, which I really like this book. I highly recommend it. And I’d encourage you to check out her latest book. It really is a fresh take on just how we can make our lives better. Her latest book is Sharp: 14 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life with Brain Science, and that is out now through Mayo Clinic Press. So y’all, now let’s get to it with Dr. Therese Huston!

—–

Rebecca Ching: Therese, welcome!

Therese Huston: Oh, thank you, Rebecca! It is such a treat to be here.

Rebecca Ching: So I found out about you and your work when I was researching just some different things that have been discussed around feedback that seems to be something that comes up a lot in my leadership coaching. It’s something I’ve rumbled with a lot having been on both sides of it and not feeling great about it. You have a new book that just came out, and I want to give a shoutout to it, but I’ve got to start off with feedback because I know listeners to this show would really value your thought leadership on this topic.

But I want to start off with just kind of a personal approach to this. I would love for you to take me back to a moment when you were giving or receiving feedback that it felt especially high stakes for you, and what did you learn about yourself and feedback from that experience?

Therese Huston: I have several experiences with high-stakes feedback on both sides. I think that my favorite story to share on this is a funny one. So it was my first year in a new job, and the end of the year had come around, and I made a big career change when I took on this role. So I was excited to find out what I had done well, where my strengths lie in this kind of work, and where I could grow in year two.

10:23

So I asked my manager, “Could we have this conversation?” And she said, “Of course! Let’s go out to lunch! This will be fun.” So we go out to lunch at this restaurant that wasn’t far from our office, maybe a ten-minute walk, and the lunch was so fun. I was about to get married, and so, we spent a lot of time talking about courtship and the experience of the first year of marriage and just so many wonderful personal stories the two of us got to share. But as we’re getting to the end of our lunch, I’m realizing, “Wait, we haven’t talked about my first year at all.” [Laughs]

So we get up. We’ve paid the check. We’re on our way out, and I know that we’ve got this ten-minute walk back, and I’m thinking, “Okay, well, she wanted to do this over lunch. Well, we’ll talk about this on the walk back.” And as we’re leaving the restaurant she said, “Do you mind if we duck into the restroom before we head back?” And I said, “Oh, of course.” So we both go into two stalls, and I am not kidding Rebecca, she launched into my feedback in a public restroom. [Laughs] Uh-huh. I was so panicked because I don’t know what she’s gonna say, right? And she’s starting with positive things, but I know enough about feedback to know that’s where you always start. I’m not sure that’s where we’re gonna end. And I don’t know who’s gonna walk in, and I’m also thinking, “I can’t write any of this down!” [Laughs]

Anyways, it was just an awful — I don’t remember anything that she said because I was so flooded with emotions and panic at the time. And it was mostly positive, I remember that in general strokes, thank goodness.

12:00

But I learned a number of really important things there. First of all, I felt I had so little power. The person who’s receiving feedback often feels pretty powerless. That was 20 years ago. Today I would say, “Can we hold on just five minutes?” [Laughs] Ah, “I could hear this much better in five minutes.” I wouldn’t have to point out the public nature. I would just have to make a joke out of it. But I think that often, especially young feedback recipients feel they don’t have any power in the situation. So that was one really helpful lesson.

And I think another lesson that I took from it is that I think she had really good intentions. I really do. She was just all of a sudden realizing, “Oh, my goodness! An hour’s gone by, and we haven’t gotten to the point of this conversation yet,” and she wanted to make sure she squeezed it in. And I think she knew it was gonna be largely positive, and so, she wasn’t worried about, you know, anybody walking in. I think she would have been much more sensitive if it had been bad news. But like I said, I heard nothing that she said because I was feeling such threat in that moment. It was really hard.

Rebecca Ching: That’s such a good point, too, that the feedback experience — I work with a lot of leaders who care about how they deliver feedback, especially when it’s hard feedback or feedback like, “You’re not gonna stay at this job,” or “We need to let you go.”

Therese Huston: Right.

Rebecca Ching: But it’s such a good point, too, that if the delivery of the feedback feels good, not to take that for granted. It’s also the experience of the person receiving it. It’s not just what’s said, where it’s said. What’s the container that you create for it is so essential for both.

So yeah, public bathroom feedback, I think — you know, and the story I make up is she was probably super chill and feeling uncomfortable and wanting to rush, but that your brain was out. And it’s so hard to receive good feedback, I think especially for women, right?

Therese Huston: Sure.

14:05

Rebecca Ching: And so, the fact that you had positive feedback and you couldn’t receive it —

Therese Huston: Oh, thank you for pointing that out! I’ve never thought about that. You’re right. Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: Yeah!

Therese Huston: Yeah, and it’s funny because I did share a story. There was a male colleague who started the job within a month of when I did, and we at least had the same titles, and I shared this story with him a few months later, not right away, but I eventually shared it with him, and he laughed. He was  like, “She would never do that to me!” And I’m like, “Well, because you don’t enter a restroom together!” [Laughs] But it was kind of funny, the casual nature of my relationship with her, whereas he had a more formal relationship with her. And so, he thought that she wouldn’t make that misstep, and it was very cute.

Rebecca Ching: Yeah, it’s such a good reminder, though, to recognize, even if we are close with those we work with, to always be aware of our role power and our status powers in that process too.

As I was digging into more of your book, Let’s Talk, which is about feedback, at the beginning of the book, you kind of did this beautiful summary (and my brain exploded a little bit) where you identified this kind of general two camps of feedback. And I’m like, “There’s only two?” But you did a good synopsis of this. In general, there’s this group of folks you identified, Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater, and he wrote Principles, and of course, Kim Scott who wrote Radical Candor and a lot of people in the circles I’m in quote from that or pull from that, that they like the direct feedback, challenging people. And that’s almost like — I’m a Gen Xer, and so, I was thinking about if I don’t get bad feedback and I just get strengths, you know, which is the other camp — but also, we’ve got to learn how to receive the good. But people can go dark if it’s not delivered well and all of that. And then this camp you identify with Marcus Buckingham and his coauthor Ashley Goodall, and the book Nine Lies About Work where they focus on strengths and over the deficit.

16:05

So I’d love for you to share where you land in these camps and then, you know, you wrote this book a handful of years ago, and I’m curious, is there anything additional since you wrote the book around feedback worth noting?

Therese Huston: It’s a great question, and you’re right. There are more models. There are lots of acronyms out there, The Situation-Behavior-Impact Model. I tried to pick two that were kind of the feedback flavors of the day when I wrote the book back in 2019/2020 — well, 2018/2019’s really when I was writing it. And what’s, I think, interesting to me about those two models, you’ve got the extreme, the radical transparency, or the radical candor, depending on whether you take Dalio’s or Scott’s approach, which is, “We have to say the hard stuff.” Kim Scott adds the, “But if you don’t do it with kindness, you’re just obnoxious,” right? And so, she adds that layer, which is really important. I think what’s tricky there, though, is that it can be — what researchers find is that something like 95% of us think we have high self-awareness, but the reality is it’s only like 10-15% of us have high self-awareness of the impact that we’re having on others. Our emotional intelligence tends to be much lower than we think.

And so, the concern that I have is that some leaders will think that they’re being kind in how they deliver their feedback when they don’t really have a good way to know if they’re being kind. They don’t have concrete strategies. So I really get concerned that people will think that they’re commenting in a caring way, when they’re not. So that’s a concern I have, particularly with Kim Scott’s approach.

And then the Buckingham-Goodall approach I like because I love to focus on strength, and one of the ways that I do that, particularly when I’m trying to coach someone, I’ll do something with norm-centered feedback.

18:07

And so, the idea there is I’ll point out something like, “Rebecca, before we got started with recording today, you asked me how I was doing today, and that just immediately made me feel calm,” and I know that by giving you that feedback, you’re more likely to do it again with future people, right? And so, often when I’m giving feedback to someone, I will find some one time that they did something, maybe they’d never done it again, but I will work really hard to find that one time when they did something that I’d like to see them do more often, and I’ll point out the positive impact that it had and then say, “Is that something you could find more ways to do?” or “What was happening when you did that, that made that an easy thing to do,” to help the person figure out, “Oh, under these circumstances, I do it. But I don’t  naturally do it under these circumstances. Oh, I should do it more often.”

So I do like the strength focus. I do, and I practice that in my own work. But where I kind of fall in the middle between the two is that I really like to take an approach of how can I side with the other person, how can I see this from their perspective and have a real conversation with them, and that really connects more with work like Michael Bungay Stanier of The Coaching Habit. I love his question: “What’s the real challenge here for you?” It’s such a short question and often leads to such long answers, and I also really like Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone’s approach in Thanks for the Feedback. They also strongly lean into asking questions and having a dialogue.

So both of those approaches I like and try to model. I find that asking questions, and in fact one of the things I often do is I will, someone has subsequently called this pre-ordering feedback. So I’ll let someone know I’m going to give them feedback, and I’ll ask them ahead of time, “What would you like feedback on? Tell me what you’re working on, the thing where you feel like, ‘Oh, but no one’s ever told me how this is working.’”

20:08

And that, then, puts them in a position of control. And chances are, if I have some concern that doesn’t relate to their concern, I can find some way to connect the two, right? So if someone’s giving a presentation and they tell me, “I’m really worried about my first five slides. Can you tell me about how my first five PowerPoint slides are?” And what I’m really concerned about is slide number ten, whoa, whoa, we’ve got to get rid of slide number ten. So what I can start with is, “Oh, slide number one through five you set up this beautiful story and you built so much trust in the room, and then the concern I have is that you might have lost all that trust on slide ten,” right? And so, I’m moving it into what they care about and giving them a reason to really rethink slide ten.

I love to do the preordering feedback. It puts the other person in control, and it tells me what they care about so I can attach my concerns to something that they already are concerned about.

Rebecca Ching: There’s something about feedback is about — it has to be generative and relational in addition to the results. If there isn’t a relationship, if there isn’t connection and trust, why would there be any change or any risk of vulnerability or growth? So hearing you talk, I mean, I wish I had feedback from you in my formative years because it leads me to my next question about feedback where you write that feedback — and this stood out to me just with my trauma-informed background. But you note that feedback’s often processed emotionally before it goes up rationally, right?

Therese Huston: Right.

Rebecca Ching: Which really goes to my training — I’m a school of a lot of Brené Brown’s research and others that we are feeling beings who think, versus Carol Dweck who is kind of more we’re thinking beings who feel, right?

Therese Huston: Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: Like we feel it up and then we connect it here.

Therese Huston: Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: Because feedback was weaponized in my family of origin, in classes, and in workspaces.

22:04

It was like my body would lock up like it never was a good thing. Once I had good bosses and good people around, I get excited because I’m like, “Ooh, what worked, and where are my growth edges, and that’s exciting.” But that’s more recent, and I think we, like, “They need some feedback.” I even hear people say in some of the orgs that I get brought into, “They need feedback.” And I’m like, “Well, let’s unpack that. What are you really saying here?”

So I love that you identified that, and I’m wondering if you can walk me through your thought process, a little bit, of how you got to there, of we process emotionally before process rationally.

Therese Huston: Well, part of it is, so often, feedback will trigger — I really like, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Jill Bolte Taylor’s work?

Rebecca Ching: Mm-nm..

Therese Huston: So she has what she calls, I think, the 90-second rule. She’s a neuroscientist who has pointed out you have a chemical reaction in your body that might last about 90 seconds, and that would be the initial emotional experience you’re having, whether that’s excitement at the surprise, people leap out of the woodwork for you when you walk into your house, and it’s a surprise party, or it’s your manager telling you something you didn’t expect to hear, and it’s really upsetting to you that your manager didn’t like something that you did. But you have this initial strong emotional reaction, it lasts about 90 seconds, and then after that, after that initial physiological reaction, any strong emotions you’re feeling after that is the loop that you’re going into or the things that you’re telling yourself about whatever it is they said or whatever it is that just happened. If it’s the surprise party you’re like, “Oh, my gosh! I’m not dressed for this! It’s not a good hair day,” right? But it’s the thoughts that you’re having that are creating the strong anxiety, not the initial reaction. Or if it’s with your manager, you’re starting to think, “Wait a second, am I gonna be cut? Is something gonna happen? I know ten percent of the employees are projected to be lost this year. Am I gonna be one of the ten percent?”

24:15

Whatever it might be, you now are telling yourself you’re thinking through things, but it continued the emotional reaction. And I think that’s really powerful to think about in terms of feedback because for so many managers at least that I’ve worked with, and I’ve certainly been there myself, when you’re giving feedback, you’re so anxious about what it is you’re about to say if it’s critical, that once you’ve said the hard thing, you’re like, “Ah, phew. Okay. Okay, now we can get to problem solving.” But the other person might not be ready to problem solve yet, right? They’re telling themselves some story about what you just told them, and they’re panicked about what it might mean. Does that mean they don’t get to be the  lead on the project? Does that mean they have to work with so-and-so who they don’t like to work with, right? There are so many consequences. They lose some autonomy. They lose some status, right? There are all of these things that can be lost, or at least you think they’re on the chopping block.

And so, I think it’s really important as managers and leaders to think about, “Okay, I’m gonna say this thing that they might not be expecting or might not want to hear, and I try to ease into that by asking people how they think something went.” I’ve talked with some people who really don’t like that approach. They say that always feels like they’re being set up. I think it probably depends on how you ask the question, do you know what I’m talking about?

Rebecca Ching: And the relationship. Yeah, it depends on the person too because I’m like, “Uh-oh, that’s not typical for them. Normally we’ll debrief if it’s a normal thing, but if it’s not, I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t know, tell me what you think. You show me yours before I show you mine.’”

Therese Huston: [Laughs] Exactly, well said! Yeah, you show me yours before I show you mine. But I often try to find out, “Did that go the way you expected? If you could do it over again, would you do it the same way?” Because I want to find out if they thought that was a huge win, that’s a very different feedback conversation than if they were like, “Ugh, yeah, I was disappointed. Oh, I can’t believe I said what I said. that wasn’t what I’d planned to say,” right? So it’s really helpful to get a feel for where that person is in the space before I get into my concerns.

26:28

Rebecca Ching: That’s the relationship, again, coming up for you where you’re focusing on you know what you want to say, but you want to stay attuned to the other person. And I’m not hearing you overly get into it. You’re more just wanting a touchstone, not like, “I have to take care of them and make sure they’re okay,” but it’s more of “I want a temperature check so I can tailor the delivery, the content, the process so that it’s heard,” is what I’m hearing, at least, from you. Am I hearing that correctly?

Therese Huston: I think you are. So often I’m working with people where I’m giving the — I often give feedback to people who I’ve only had one or two interactions with. Now, I have a team, but then also people bring me in to give them feedback. So I’ve had one conversation with them to find out what their priorities are, and then I’m watching them perform and then giving them feedback, so we haven’t had a long — we don’t have a long-standing relationship. So it’s a different model than I think a lot of managers find themselves in.

Rebecca Ching: Yeah, but it’s a good practice, though, to stay curious if we lose our curiosity. And I love the point that you made about we can, often when we’re delivering the feedback, especially when it’s tough, we’re relieved. But then we need to hold space for it to be digested, for it to be processed and to stay in that moment. So that’s a lot of emotional intelligence in that process, and yeah.

When, particularly, there’s maybe someone you have a relationship with and you have to deliver tough feedback, someone that you are invested in, what are some of the emotions that come up for you? What do you typically have to navigate, and how do you move through them?

28:08

Therese Huston: Well, I’ll feel a lot of anxiety if it’s something that I think is going to really be hard for that person to hear, either because I know they tend to be very sensitive or because I know this is something that really matters to them, this particular topic that I’m gonna give them feedback on, or just because it’s high stakes, they’re under a lot of stress, and I wish I could wait and not give the feedback right now. And I’ll often ask, “Is this a good time for this feedback?” and if they say no, I’ll go, “Okay, great. Why don’t you let me know when in the next two or three days,” and I’ll give them a time window. I won’t just say, “Whenever it’s good for you!” right? Because it may never be good for them, or at least they don’t want to hear it, so they want to push it off. So I’ll often give it a time window like, “Let’s do this before the end of the week, but you pick. You can find a spot on my calendar, and we’ll do this.” And that puts them back in the control zone.

But it is really tricky. I do feel anxious, and it really helps, then, to have a lot of tools in your back pocket so you can say some things to the other person so that you can see they are open and receptive because you’re taking a risk. You know, I think this is often overlooked when people talk about giving feedback. You’re taking a risk, right? The other person could shut down. They could become unmotivated on other tasks. They might be like, “Well, screw this. I’m gonna start looking for jobs,” right? And so, I mean, you are, you’re taking real risks. And we’re in an economy now where I think maybe looking for other jobs is less of a risk. But we’ll come back around. That’ll become a risk again at some point in the near future.

Rebecca Ching: One of the biggest fears I’ve heard of late, for a while now, is that there will be backlash, that there will be smear campaigns.

Therese Huston: Ah. Yes.

Rebecca Ching: And taking some of that toxicity and having to navigate a hard conversation because there’s the delivering, but I also don’t know if we’re good at receiving feedback that makes us feel challenged. Even if we disagree with it, it goes really personal.

30:19

So I think that’s bubbling up. The leaders I work with, they’re like, “I did everything I could, but it just wasn’t received.” So sometimes people will want to avoid it or want to water it down or just, yeah, usually those two. So it takes a lot.

So you talk about having some of those tools for you. What are some of the things that help you work through the anxiety and the vulnerability? I know you have some intellectual strategies, but anything else that helps you stay in your body and stay present?

Therese Huston: So I do tend to intellectualize, so I’m glad you’re acknowledging that. That is something I tend to do. So I’ll talk about one strategy I find really helpful for giving feedback that is a good intellectual strategy, and then we can talk about kind of the thing you can do before a feedback conversation to kind of help you feel centered. It’s also a technique that you can do on the receiving end as well.

So in terms of giving feedback, a tool that I find so helpful, and I talk about it in Let’s Talk, but I do this in my personal relationships as well as my professional relationships, is to state my good intentions. This is great work from Leslie John at Harvard Business School. She’s a Management Professor. Anyway, one of the things that John does is that she does this fabulous work where she found that if people stated their good intentions ahead of time, that people heard the feedback very differently, that they thought that this was good insight, right?

So let me give you an example that just happened recently with my husband. So I wanted to give him some feedback on how I thought he was taking things a little personally, and I was concerned this might be affecting our relationship but also hurting himself at work if this was a pattern at work.

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And so, I said something like, “You know, I value our relationship so much, and I always want us to be able to be really present for one another.” And he’s like, “Oh, I want that too. You’re such a good listener.” I’m like, “Yeah, you’re a really good listener too. But I have this concern…” and then I went into it, and he was like, “Oh, I hadn’t thought about that maybe my sensitivity could actually make it harder for us to have intimate conversations.” And it was so helpful. Because I started with a good intention, I think he heard it much more, whereas if I just started with, “I think you’re being a bit sensitive,” he’d be like, “Well, blah, blah, blah,” you know? [Laughs] Who knows. Who knows what he would have said, but he could have gotten defensive, and it triggered his sensitivity, right?

And I find this works so well at work as well. If you start with, “Here’s my positive intention,” it’ll feel artificial to you, but it’s almost like the other person is a little flower opening up. They’ve become curious for what’s next as opposed to defensive. What’re your thoughts as I say that?

Rebecca Ching: Well, I’m thinking of a conversation I had recently with someone when we were working through some feedback that needed to be given, and she was like, “I don’t want to be manipulative. I just want to be authentic.”

Therese Huston: Mm. Mm.

Rebecca Ching: And she’s a straight shooter, and she’s known for that on her team, and she’s amazing, like high integrity. And so, as I get to know you, we’ve had a few email exchanges and this, but my sense is that it’s just like, “He needs to know that he’s being sensitive, or else if he doesn’t get it together, he’s gonna lose his job, and we have plans. We need that salary. So I’m gonna come in super sweet and let him know my input.”

Therese Huston: [Laughs]

Rebecca Ching: I think there is something where this is kind of who you are. You’re like, “Okay, I know that if I just am like, “You’re being sensitive,” but I want to be curious and say, “Listen, I ‘m curious about this. My intention is to share this coming from the heart,” versus I’m gonna mask and fake it, you know?

Therese Huston: Ah, yes!

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Rebecca Ching: Because I think people know the lingo and they know the mask to put on, but they don’t have the real depth and practice and emotional intelligence or capacity for all of that. And so, I just want to name — because I can hear people listening to this going, “That sounds great, but what if I don’t believe it? What if I just want to say, ‘Dude! You’re being sensitive,’” right?

Therese Huston: Yeah! Right. [Laughs]

Rebecca Ching: Which may or may not be how I would say it to my husband. I don’t know! But I think there’s a where do we meet with authenticity but also a genuine curiosity is what I’m hearing from you, like a real curiosity. Not like, “I need to get him to see this so I feel better that he keeps his job,” versus — can we just dig a little bit into the anatomy of that more, what was going on with you? That would be helpful.

Therese Huston: I think one of the things that I’ll be careful to do, and I advise others to do is that when you’re coming up with your good intention, it’s gotta be authentic to you, right? So you have to dig a little bit until you find what that authentic good intention is that is about the other person, not just, “I want this problem to go away,” right?

Rebecca Ching: So the intention is what’s authentic to what you want for the other and not your own —

Therese Huston: Exactly. Yes. Yes, what you want for the other person.

Rebecca Ching: That will take some digging because isn’t it just all about me? Come on? I know it’s not, but sometimes when there’s something frustrating you — let me ask you this. Can it be both? Isn’t there an element of —

Therese Huston: Oh, of course. Absolutely, absolutely. So I’m thinking of a time, for instance, I was giving feedback to a professor who had told a homophobic story in class, and I got to watch him do this, and I was like, “You are kidding.”

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And he invited me to that class. It was just like, “Really? I’m so glad I’m here so we can talk about this.” And I’m mostly concerned for what it’s gonna do to alienate students, whatever their sexual orientation. But as anyone who feels that they’re other is now gonna feel like, “I’ve got to hide my otherness.” And so, I’m mostly concerned for the students, but I had to think what’s my genuine concern for him? That he could get fired, right, or be sued, or the school could be sued, and that would affect him as well.

And so, to be able to — you know, I didn’t start with, “I think you’re gonna get fired if you keep doing this,” but I tried to start with, “I have real concerns with that story that you told. Do you have any concerns?” And when he said, “No, no, I thought I made my point.” I’m like, “I’m concerned you could get fired.” He was like, “What?” [Laughs] He didn’t see it! This was years ago, so today people would be more aware of this, but this was more like 2001/2002. But I was able to find an in that he did care about because he did really want this job. I didn’t come up with it right away, right? Initially, I was just like, “Oh, my goodness! You can never do that again. That is not fair to your students.” It can take some work, right?

Rebecca Ching: There’s such a theme, though. You’re building connection, you’re building trust, and you’re also genuinely wanting the other person to hear you.

Therese Huston: Yes.

Rebecca Ching: And so, to come in hot — and I just love that, man, we can really make feedback truly generative for both involved, even when it’s challenging, by modeling a genuine care and connection, connection to your own values and authenticity and the mission. But when it’s kind of like that first bucket of folks that you talked about, it really is, “You need to change.” It’s not tidy, let’s be honest. I know you get brought into do these one-and-dones, but with the ongoing relationships, we’ve got to normalize that it’s not tidy. Often, there are follow-up conversations, correct?

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Therese Huston: Absolutely. Often, there are follow-up conversations, and one of the things that I’ll advise people to do and that I do myself is, towards the end of a conversation, because I’m concerned that people just went into their heads and are having such a strong emotional reaction that they didn’t — you know, on the surface they appeared that we were engaged in the conversation, but I’m not sure what actually stuck, right? I always leave lots of time for the brainstorming, the, “What do you want to try? What’s on the table? What are you willing to try? What is off the table? What are you just like, ‘You know what? I’m –,’” and we usually start there, like, “Well, I’m not gonna do this, and I’m not gonna do this.” Like, “Okay, great!” And then they usually back off a little bit like, “Well, actually, I would be willing to try that under these circumstances.” But I try to help them, first, set the limits. “You know what? I’m not gonna work with Anne. I can’t stand working with Anne, so I’m not gonna do that. But what I would be willing to do is, okay, yeah, I could do more emails with Anne,” or whatever it might be, right?

So I try to help people brainstorm. But at the end of the meeting, I’m then gonna ask, “All right, so we covered a lot of ground today. There was a lot. What stands out to you?” Because I want to hear what they’re taking away, which helps me understand if they stay in such an emotional swirl that they’re just like, “I think my takeaway is that I might lose my job.” I’m like, “Ooh, let’s talk again tomorrow, because that is definitely not what I’m thinking,” right, you know? “We don’t have time today, but let’s come back to that.”

Having someone check in with that. You know, what are my top three takeaways, and then that gives you the chance — there’s great research showing, especially the more critical the feedback, the more managers tend to sugarcoat. And so, if you’ve sugarcoated and don’t realize it (and often managers don’t realize they sugarcoat), if you ask, “What are your top three takeaways,” and they don’t say the big thing that you thought you said, you can come back to, “You know, actually, my concerns are bigger than that.

40:09

We need to have a follow-up conversation,” and then you have to say it, then, with a little more clarity than you said it the first time.

[Inspirational Music]

Rebecca Ching: Leading is hard, and it’s also often controversial as you navigate staying aligned to your values, your mission, your boundaries. Navigating the inevitable controversy can challenge your confidence and clarity and calm, and I know you don’t mind making hard decisions, but sometimes the stakes seem higher and can bring up echoes of old doubts and insecurities during times when you need to feel rock solid on your plan and action.

Finding a coach who gets the nuances of your business and leading in our complex and, yes, polarized world can help you identify the blocks that can keep you playing it safe and small. I’m not sure playing it safe really is safe anymore, right? Because leading today is not a fancy title or fluffy bragging rights. It’s brave and bold work to stay the course when the future is literally so unknown and the doubts and pains from the past (your past) keep showing up to shake things up. Internal emotional practices and systemic strategies are needed to keep the protector of cynicism at bay and foster a hope that is actionable and aligned.

So when the stakes are high (because when are they not these days) and you don’t want to lose focus, when you want to navigate inevitable conflict, like when you’re giving or receiving feedback, but also what shows up between your ears and with those you lead, when time is of the essence and you want to make hard decisions with confidence and clarity, then Unburdened Leader Coaching is for you and where you deepen the capacity to tolerate the vulnerability of change, innovation, and doing things differently than you were taught.

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To start your Unburdened Leader Coaching process with me go to www.rebeccaching.com and book a free connection call. I can’t wait to hear from you!

[Inspirational Music]

Rebecca Ching: I want to touch on something else that you wrote about that your research found that women, especially in leadership, often receive feedback that focuses more on their personality than their performance, while their male counterparts are more likely to get that concrete developmental input. How can we better prepare our feedback, so we don’t default into some of those common tropes?

Therese Huston: Yeah, so there’s been even more recent research since my book came out finding that based on actual written performance reviews (this was research by Textio), women get 22% more personality feedback than men do, which might not be a huge difference, but it’s often the personality feedback that hurts, right? So women get the word “abrasive” and men don’t. Women are told they’re too aggressive three times more often than men are, and that’s what can be remembered about a woman, right? So you might write a lengthy feedback, “Here’s what I want you to know,” but the thing that people talk about when they read her file is, like, “Ooh, she’s aggressive. I don’t know,” right? “Oh, too aggressive, even.”

So a couple of things that I emphasize in order to make sure that for any employee, regardless of gender, that you’re giving actionable feedback and that you’re focused on behaviors. First of all, use nouns and verbs, not adjectives. So instead of saying, “You’re too aggressive,” you could say, “One of the things I’m noticing in meetings is that sometimes you will be the first one to talk, and when other people want to talk, you’ll be reluctant to give up the floor,” right?

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“And here’s the concern that I have about that, that it’s gonna discourage other people from contributing. They’re just gonna sit silently in meetings where you start to talk, and I want all the views in the room,” whatever it might be. But we’re focusing on behaviors, right? Nouns and verbs as opposed to “aggressive,” which, you know, there are gonna be some people who are like, “This is how you get ahead in this organization,” right?

A second would be that for any employee that you have if you’re a manager, people who work for you, to make a goal of coaching every employee on three things at whatever the cycle is for you. So if you have one-on-ones once a month, then once a month you’re gonna be doing coaching, and you’ll want to coach on three things. But that’ll make sure that you’re not just coaching the men and shying away from coaching the women. Also, employees of color also get less coaching, and some of the thinking on that is that people are afraid that they’re gonna seem sexist or racist, because these are so often white, male managers that are shying away from doing this. So it might seem a little artificial, but to say, “I’ve got to find three things to coach this person on.” And then you might notice, “Wow, it is easier for me to coach the men on my team because maybe I’m not worried that they’re gonna cry,” right? There are a surprising number of managers that fear that women will cry if they get hard feedback. I have had people cry in my office, but I can’t think it’s been the women more than the men, you know? It just depends on the individual. In any case, thinking though, “What are the behaviors we’re gonna focus on, and what coaching can I offer,” and just to make sure you do it equally across the board.

Rebecca Ching: I want to jump to these — you identified three problematic mindsets when giving feedback, and I’d love for you to just kind of talk about them briefly and then maybe how to move to a non-problematic mindset, what we want to move away from. So one of the scripts — maybe I’ll just read through them.

Therese Huston: Sure, go right ahead!

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Rebecca Ching: One of them is, “The script will save me. If I have it all written out, I am good.” And then you have another one “siding with the problem,” or “she’s a little…” so “they’re a little…”

Yeah, why don’t you talk to them. What’s problematic and then how can we shift away from those mindsets that keep us stuck?

Therese Huston: Sure, so the first one, “The script will save me,” I’ve worked with so many managers and leaders where they spend a lot of time figuring out exactly how they’re gonna say it, and then they say those words and, like I said, they’re either relieved or they’re just like, “Oh, man, I was supposed to say it. I was supposed to use this word. Why didn’t I use that word?” But they’re so attached to their script that they’re not being responsive. It’s not a dialogue; it’s a monologue. Plus, I worked with one CEO of a clothing company, and she was giving feedback to one of her directs, and he got so angry, and she wasn’t ready for that because she was like, “But I, But I, But I, But I did my thing!” [Laughs] “I followed the script! Why isn’t this working,” right? And it just left her at a loss because then she couldn’t even process what was happening because she thought everything should fall into place as long as she followed her script that she’d so carefully pulled together from different feedback books.

The second mindset that’s problematic is siding with the problem. I especially find this either for managers who are really pressed for time, or they have a non-confrontational style, they really are avoidant of conflict, that they will spend so much time in their heads justifying to themselves that, “I have to give this feedback. The problem is dire enough. I have to do it,” that by the time they give the feedback, they’ve built this up so much in their minds that they’re on the side of the problem because, “Darnit, it’s so bad over here. You have got to change,” as opposed to if they had given the feedback perhaps sooner, they could have been like you were saying curios and connective, right? But instead they’re like, “This has to change, there’s no doubt about it, and I’m taking it forth because they’re so busy that they’re just like, ‘Hey, we’ve got to stop doing this immediately.’”

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So they’re siding with the problem as opposed to if you just picture kind of a triangle. They’re really close. You’ve got the person giving the feedback, the person receiving the feedback, and the problem. And the person giving the feedback is right next to the problem, and the person receiving the feedback is way over there. They feel like they’re out there on their own, you know?

And then the third one is the “she’s a little…,” or “they’re a little…” If I were writing the book today I’d say “they’re a little…” as opposed to “she’s a little…” But the idea here — I use the “she’s a little…” because women get so much more personality feedback and adjectives are used more freely with them. I think managers feel they’ll be softening the feedback blow if they put it in kind of their written performance review. “Oh, she could be a little pushy,” or “He can be a little arrogant,” they think they’re softening the blow. But it doesn’t soften the blow. And the other person hears it all too often as you’ve labeled them as, “This is who you are, and you cannot change,” right?

Rebecca Ching: It’s so true.

Therese Huston: And then you feel like, “Well, what’s the point in my trying to change because you’ve already labeled me in your head that this is who I am.” And so, they’re not motivated to change. They really feel, again, alienated in the experience.

So the better mindset, the one that I contrast with that, is side with the person. So if you imagine that triangle again, the feedback giver, the feedback recipient, and the problem, as the feedback giver, you’re siding with the feedback recipient. You’re kind of nestling up. It’s like you’re swinging your chair around to their side of the table. “The problem’s over there, and we’re looking at it together. Okay. Okay, given that, given that problem, that challenge, what are the options,” right? “What’s workable? What’s not workable, given the other constraints, resources, all the things,” right? And it really makes the other person feel seen and supported. It doesn’t mean you stay silent. It doesn’t mean you brush the problem away as it’s not a big deal.

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Instead it’s like, “I care about you. I want you to succeed. But this is getting in your way. Right now, this is the perception people have of you, and I know that’s not the real you!” I mean, I will sometimes say this even if I don’t feel it yet. I will say, “I don’t think that’s the real you. Is it the real you?” And they’ll be like, “Of course not!” Like, “I didn’t think so. Okay, so given that’s not the real you, how do we get rid of this perception?” Often that helps that person get to, like, “I guess I need to stop doing blank.” “Yeah, can we try that?”

Rebecca Ching: My brain is just going in all different areas, and I appreciate you sharing this so much. I want to make sure to give a little time to your new book that you just dropped. You know, our world has gone through a lot since you wrote Let’s Talk and your latest book Sharp: 14 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life with Brain Science. And I’d love for you just to talk about what shifts in your research or our larger culture stand out to you the most in writing these two books?

Therese Huston: Well, I finished Let’s Talk in January of 2020, so it was right before COVID. So obviously, one of the big changes there has been remote/hybrid work. You know, that was in the minority of companies before, and now so many organizations either have continued to do it or at least had remote work during peak pandemic and are, you know, back to office at least certain days a week if not all days a week now. But it certainly has become much more the norm now for people to be able to be remote workers and for that not to be odd.

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What’s fascinating about that is so many managers, especially during peak COVID found it so hard to give remote feedback. This was the conversation I would hear again and again and again.

Rebecca Ching: That’s true.

Therese Huston: “Ah, it’s so hard. I’ve never even met this person in person,” right? “They’ve been an employee for six months, and they were hired in March or April of 2021,” or something, “And we still haven’t met yet!” And so, it was really tricky because it just, to me, underlined that certain models like the Situation-Behavior-Impact model of feedback, you can describe the situation, behavior, and impact under any circumstances, remote, in person. It just shows there’s something missing in that model because it is harder to give feedback remotely. You know, there aren’t the cues. Is the person freaking out? Are they shaking their foot right now, right? Are they having a strong, anxious, “I’m holding back, I’m not gonna say the thing”?

Rebecca Ching: Yeah.

Therese Huston: Are they getting angry? Are they feeling crushed? We know how to control a lot of things on camera that leak out that we would see in person that we could respond to. Anyway, that’s a big change that I think has made feedback trickier.

And then I think just more recently the burnout statistics. You know, there was a recent study in Forbes in February here in 2025 finding that — it wasn’t a study done by Forbes. I think it was a study done by Moodle — finding that 66% of employees across different industries are reporting that they’re feeling burnout. Those are two-thirds? Oh, my goodness! You know, during peak COVID, it was only 50% of doctors, right, which we thought was outrageous and too high. So across different industries…

Rebecca Ching: Yeah, we’re not well.

Therese Huston: We’re not well!

Rebecca Ching: We’re not doing well.

Therese Huston: Very well said, exactly. We’re not well, and so, that really concerns me.

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Rebecca Ching: We’re deeply caring and committed, at least the people I know and work with. But we never had a beat. We never had a beat with all that we’ve been through the last five years and change and then some even, the last ten years.

Therese Huston: Yeah. Yeah!

Rebecca Ching: What led you to decide to write Sharp at this time?

Therese Huston: From a very personal perspective, it was 2020. I developed really bad habits in the mornings. I used to be someone who just would start work, get to work, here we go. Then during COVID, I became hooked to the news cycle in the mornings. I wanted to find out — you know, I would go to the CDC and look at various patterns of what was happening in my state, what was Fauci saying, right? And I got into some bad habits of not being focused right away, so I was needing my own strategies for getting focused.

And so, I began to turn to, you know, what are resources out there for getting focused, and I was delighted to find that neuroscience — I have a neuroscience background. I got my PhD in psychology, but I did my postdoctoral work in neuroscience. So I had this background, but I didn’t realize neuroscience had gotten to a point where we can actually use it to help people, and I began to read some of the neuroscience on how to improve focus, and I thought, “Oh, my goodness! There are tools out there,” and it got me excited to find out, “How do we improve memory? How do we reduce our stress? What does neuroscience tell us about that?” I mean, neuroscience even has advice on how to be better to your partner, right? [Laughs]

So neuroscience has gotten so helpful in just the past decade, and I was excited to bring all those useful lessons to everybody else now that they were being helpful to me.

Rebecca Ching: I really like how you broke it down because it wasn’t like it was jaw-dropping shocking the way that you wrote about these. There was just a little something new with each one that I’m like, “Ooh, I need this too.” I think for those of us of a certain age with COVID and all that’s happened and then mid-life, what’s going on, I think there’s a lot that’s kind of — the snow globe’s getting shaken up in a lot of ways that I’m like — and it’s interesting too, even the more personal healing work I do, it’s like my ambition is still there but not the grind, but I still need to do stuff, and I still have a lot on my plate, and I’m just playing around with that.

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Okay, this might be a bit of a Sophie’s Choice question for you.

Therese Huston: Okay.

Rebecca Ching: But if you had to focus on one of the 14 brain science practices that you identified in your book, which one do you believe is the most critical right now for navigating today’s pressures and why?

Therese Huston: Okay, so it would be what social scientists, or at least neuroscientists call a skewed breath, and it’s something I talk about in a couple of chapters in the book. And so, the idea here is that you want your exhale to be longer than your inhale. Would you mind if we demonstrated it real quick?

Rebecca Ching: Yeah, let’s go!

Therese Huston: Let’s do it. Okay, great! So I’m gonna describe it, and then we’ll step through it and people can join in.

So I’m gonna ask you to fully exhale, and then I’m gonna ask you to inhale for a count of five, hold for two, and exhale for a count of seven. It’s gonna be long and slow. And if you find as you’re doing the inhale that at three or four you’re like, “It’s hard for me to keep inhaling, just start holding your breath early. It’s fine to hold your breath slightly longer. The key is the long exhale, and then I’ll explain the  benefits. So are you ready to go?

Rebecca Ching: Yeah, let’s do it!

Therese Huston: Okay, so exhale. There you go. And we’re gonna start with the inhale, two, three, four, five. Hold, two. Exhale, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And again. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Hold, two. Exhale, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Okay, we’ll stop there. How are you feeling?

Rebecca Ching: I immediately felt a little bit more open and spacious, particularly in my chest area, and I felt like just a little — not that I wasn’t clear, but I just — I feel clearer.

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Therese Huston: Mm, I love how in touch you are with your body. Good job. So what’s beautiful about this is what you’re doing with that really extended — as long as the exhale is longer than the inhale, one of the things you’re doing is you’re activating your Vagus nerve and sending a signal from your lungs up to many brain areas, including your amygdala saying, “It’s okay. We can relax. It’s all okay.” And so, your body can feel less threat. It can free up your prefrontal cortex, and the research shows here you can make better decisions. Actually, that’s the model that they’ll use in the lab, two minutes. so we just did about 25 seconds. If you did two minutes of that, researchers find that objectively improves decision making.

So I like to do this whenever I’m about to be in a stressful situation, whether that’s giving or receiving feedback or just any kind of stressful conversation. And you can do it during the conversation. The other person doesn’t have to know. You don’t have to purse your lips. You could just do a slow exhale, and it immediately sends a signal to your whole body like, “Hey, it’s okay.” But it’ll clear up your head to be able to think more clearly. So it relaxes you, and it makes you a clearer thinker. So it’s a win on many counts.

Rebecca Ching: I love the Polyvagal body of work.

Therese Huston: Yes. Yes, exactly!

Rebecca Ching: Deb Dana was on the show earlier this year in probably one of our most popular episodes, so people really are paying attention to this. Without breath, the rest of it is like as if you’re offline.

Therese Huston: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: So I love that you chose that one. I was so curious. I was so curious. So thank you for that! I want to wrap up with a question that I ask everyone that comes on this show. How do you define leadership, and how has that definition evolved from what you were taught growing up?

Therese Huston: I did a program at Oxford University in the business school. It was about leadership, and I really liked the definition that they introduced me to, which was this notion that farmers don’t cause crops to grow. They create the conditions for crops to grow.

1:00:15

You can’t force your employees to do something, but you can create the conditions in which they want to do something, or you can create the conditions in which they can grow, which is just a wonderful contrast to micromanagement or kind of seagull leadership, where you neglect, neglect — and this is the model I think I grew up with, certainly in grad school. My grad school advisor was definitely kind of the seagull model of leadership where you neglect, neglect, and then when something goes wrong, you swoop in and make a lot of noise, and everyone’s cringing, and you’re picking at things, and then you fly away! [Laughs] Everybody’s left with low morale.

So the servant model of leadership is more popular than the farmer model of leadership, but I just really like this notion of, “How can I create the conditions in which people can grow, and what does that look like for me, and what would that look like for them,” and trying to find out what they need to grow, so that I can help provide that.

Rebecca Ching: That lands with just everything you shared, and I guess I would say the farmer lens is very much a servant leader —

Therese Huston: Mm-hmm. I think so too.

Rebecca Ching: — versus over-functioning and rescuing and centering yourself. And maybe just to wrap up on some of what we touched on today, what would you say to leaders on how they can embrace the complexities of this moment while staying true to themselves?

Therese Huston: That’s a hard one. I would say recognizing that, yes, like you said, people haven’t had a break from COVID. Maybe people take vacations, but even those tend to be over-packed, and I love asking the — leaders find it hard to get feedback, but if you can frame it as, “Hey, I need more signal,” right? And “Can you be someone who can give me signal as to what the morale is right now?”

1:02:07

So to find those people who are willing to give you that signal because I think if you frame it like that, people are more comfortable doing that than feedback because they feel feedback is evaluative, where signal is like, “Oh, I’m helping you move forward,” right? So I think that might be a piece of advice I’d offer.

Rebecca Ching: So good. I love it. I could probably keep talking to you forever, but I won’t. But I do wrap up with some fun, quickfire questions.

Therese Huston: Sure!

Rebecca Ching: So are you ready?

Therese Huston: I’m ready! Go for it.

Rebecca Ching: Okay. What are you reading right now?

Therese Huston: The Frozen River, that’s the novel. I can’t remember the author, but it’s a fun historical fiction.

Rebecca Ching: What song are you playing on repeat?

Therese Huston: I’m not listening to much music, but in my head I’m playing “Skyfall” by Adele. [Laughs] A good song, yeah.

Rebecca Ching: Oh, I have songs that go on loop in my head all the time.

Therese Huston: Mm-hmm, yes.

Rebecca Ching: What is the best TV show or movie that you’ve seen recently?

Therese Huston: I just finished season two of Shrinking on Apple TV+. It’s about a ton of the —

Rebecca Ching: It’s so good.

Therese Huston: Isn’t it so good? An insider baseball of therapists. It’s so good, yeah.

Rebecca Ching: Season two was even better than the first season.

Therese Huston: So true, yeah.

Rebecca Ching: It was so good, and that was saying a lot, yeah. What is your favorite eighties piece of pop culture or piece of pop culture from the decade you grew up in?

Therese Huston: I loved my Walkman! Oh, my goodness, right?

Rebecca Ching: Hello.

Therese Huston: Yeah, yeah. You know, I know it’s been replaced by so many better devices. But I think that saved me and my roommate in college so much conflict because we had totally different music tastes. [Laughs]

Rebecca Ching: That’s awesome. What is your mantra right now?

Therese Huston: I have two. Professionally, it would be “progress not perfection,” just always trying to learn and improve. And in my personal life it’s “eat protein like it’s your part time job,” because I love carbs, and I am trying to eat more protein. [Laughs]

Rebecca Ching: For women of a certain age, it’s very important right now.

Therese Huston: It’s very important, yeah.

Rebecca Ching: What is an unpopular opinion that you hold?

Therese Huston: Oh, this is funny because it’s also food related. It’s that milk chocolate is an excellent choice. [Laughs]

Rebecca Ching: I love milk chocolate too.

Therese Huston: Me too. I do.

Rebecca Ching: Who or what inspires you to be a better leader and human?

1:04:22

Therese Huston: Oh, it’d have to be my husband, believe it or not. I think he is such a good leader and such a good human. You know, I want to rise and just do better because I so adore him.

Rebecca Ching: That’s awesome. I feel the same way about my guy, too. Therese, this was a delight. I learned so much from you today, and I’m gonna continue to devour what you write. Where can people find your work and connect with you?

Therese Huston: So they can find me on my website, which is just theresehuston.com. But in terms of finding my books if they want to read either Let’s Talk or Sharp, you can find that wherever you like to buy books, and I look forward to hearing from you!

Rebecca Ching: Awesome, thank you for this conversation. It was a true  pleasure and an honor, so I appreciate it!

Therese Huston: Oh, I just feel like we’ve had a warm hug, so thank you so much, Rebecca!

—–

Rebecca Ching: So much of how we navigate feedback, how we offer it, how we take it in is shaped by our skills, the systems we live and work, our stories, and the burdens we carry. And Dr. Huston reminded us that even the best-intentioned feedback can miss the mark if it’s delivered without curiosity, connection, and consent. When we forget the human nervous system behind the performance review or the story behind the reaction, we lose the opportunity to lead with integrity and impact. It’s easy to reduce feedback to a checkbox or a leadership metric, but generative relational feedback, it’s a practice, and it’s one that requires presence, one that asks us to be attuned not only to the outcome, but to the emotional and systemic context people are navigating right now. It’s a lot.

1:06:11

So I invite you to reflect on the following. Where might you be protecting yourself or holding back in how you’re giving or receiving feedback? How has feedback been used in your life as a gift, a weapon, or something in between? And what does support look like for you to grow and heal around giving and receiving feedback? And what would be needed to help you build a feedback culture or expand on what you’re already building in a way that heals rather than harms? To create spaces where truth and care coexist, where feedback becomes less about fixing and more about seeing, and where power is used to build trust not break it, y’all, this is the ongoing work of an Unburdened Leader.

Thank you so much for joining this episode of The Unburdened Leader! You can find this episode, show notes, Unburdened Leader resources, along with ways to work with me and sign up for my new Substack at www.rebeccaching.com. And if this episode was impactful to you and you haven’t done so yet, yes, this is another reminder to encourage you to leave a rating, a review, share this episode, subscribe to the podcast, and thank you so much for helping us get the word out about this show! And this episode was produced by the incredible team at Yellow House Media!

[Inspirational Music]