Triggered by Gary De Rodriguez book cover with shattered glass design, promoting the article ‘Why Capable People Get Defensive About Feedback,’ available October 6 with pre-order information.

Why Capable People Get Defensive About Feedback (and How to Stop)

book corporate leadership relationships triggered work Oct 01, 2026

Quick Answer:

People get defensive about feedback when the comment lands as a verdict on who they are instead of information about what they did. Defensiveness shows up in the second before you speak. You can reduce it by noticing your early body signals, asking what you are making the feedback mean, and naming the reaction out loud instead of acting it out.

Picture this. Your manager asks you to step into her office to talk about yesterday’s presentation. She has not accused you of anything. Her tone is calm. Still, something shifts. You start reviewing the presentation in your head, looking for the mistake before she names it.

She mentions a couple of things that could be better. You explain why you made those choices. She offers another observation. You explain that one too. A few minutes later she says, “You seem defensive.” And now you are defending the fact that you are not defensive.

I have watched some version of this happen with executives, founders, and high performers for more than three decades. It is one of the most common patterns I know, and one of the most misunderstood.

Why Do I Get Defensive When I Get Feedback?

If we describe that conversation afterward, we would probably say, “She criticized my work and I got defensive.” That is accurate, but it starts too late. The more useful question is what happened between her first sentence and your first explanation.

Did the feedback mean you had failed? Did it suggest, even for a moment, that she no longer respected your competence? Did it touch an old fear of being exposed as not good enough?

Defensiveness rarely feels like a decision. It feels like an arrival. It shows up before you have consciously chosen anything.

Why High Performers Are Often More Prone to This

Many high performers built their success, in part, on avoiding criticism. They prepare more than anyone else, anticipate every objection, and become so competent that people rarely get the chance to question them.

Those habits genuinely help. The difficulty comes when that shield stays up in moments where there is no attack, like a routine conversation about making a good presentation better.

To one person, the sentence “There is an error here” is simply information. To another, it lands as humiliation. The words do not change. The filter does.

How to Stop Being Defensive: 3 Things That Help

The answer is not “just be more open to feedback.” Most people who get defensive already know they should be open. The gap is what happens in the second or two before they respond.

Notice your early signals. For some people it is the jaw or the chest. For others it is speaking faster, or building a counterargument while the other person is still talking.
Ask what you are making the feedback mean. “This slide needs work” and “I am not good at my job” are very different statements. Under pressure, they can feel identical.
Name it instead of acting it out. “I can feel myself getting defensive, and I want to make sure I hear you” changes the whole conversation. It keeps ownership of your state with you instead of turning it into an accusation.

The Bigger Picture

Leaders who can hear feedback without bracing for combat tend to get more of it, and better feedback leads to better decisions. The ones who cannot often find that people quietly stop telling them things.