The Critical Role of Feedback in Effective Communication

Getting (and giving) feedback is one of the most crucial parts of good communication and is especially important for leaders who must be sure their messages are received and decoded by their audience. The sender of a message needs the response of the receiver in order to decide the effectiveness of communication. Because communication is a two way process, without feedback from both the receiver (and the sender in a constant loop), the message contents may be misinterpreted or lost. Feedback tells the sender whether the message is received successfully and/or whether the receiver liked it or not. Doug Stone and Sheila Heen (2014) say that Feedback actually sits at the crux of two human needs. The first, to learn and grow and to achieve mastery

Developed by American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham (1955), the model is based on two ideas. First, trust can be acquired by revealing information about you to others and second, learning about yourself from the feedback received from others. The Johari Window shows four different selves (Public, Private, Blind, and Undiscovered). The results obtained by using this tool may reveal an imbalance between giving and asking for feedback which may affect one's effectiveness in the group. Areas about yourself that are unknown will be revealed and not knowing your own issues can negatively affect your ability to communicate

Revelation was a record of the vision of John, an imprisoned Christian leader in the first century A.D. The second and third chapters of this book were messages for Christian churches located in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea (NIV, Revelation 1:9-11). Maureen Vanterpool, a Geneva College faculty member, observed that each of the letters, while varying somewhat in feedback style and content (some quite negative), ended on an encouraging (and positive) theme of hope. The lesson to be learned is that it's important to balance negative feedback with positive feedback, but the overall focus needs to be on the future, not the