Jamie Woolf

When she gave me that feedback, I felt this gut punch of shame.

And I want to say I owned it right away.

But I didn't.

I did what, let's be honest, so many of us do when we get tough feedback.

I blocked that shame.

I built walls around me.

I built a fortress of solitude, just me and my self-justifications.

Well, it was the workplace, so it was a cubicle of solitude.

And from inside here, my employee, she's the problem.

Her accusations of favoritism, I had a logical explanation for all of that.

So inside my cubicle, what's problematic about that is outside, all sorts of bad things might be happening.

People might be upset, feeling demoralized, but they can't get into these walls.

So inside, I'm feeling just fine.

I'm a good boss.

But of course, you can't be a good boss and be that disconnected.

So how do I get out of here?

It starts with a healthy dose of honest self-reflection.

So when my employee gave me the feedback, that armor was protecting my ego, but it cost me the ability to be a good, supportive, humane boss.

So eventually, I got it, and I started to show up for my employees' trainings, so I could give her meaningful feedback and positive recognition, and I started to carve out time to take her to lunch and get to know her as a person.

And not just that, I also reached out to the other people on my team who I hadn't spent as much time with, and I got to know them as full people too.