How not to trigger defensiveness when you criticise

^{Hi! Welcome. You being here means more than you know. Knowing it lands with someone like you keeps me going. I'm Lavena Xu-Johnson. I write about psychology for founders. Why? Because scaling a business means scaling ourselves first.}

Hi founders,

Welcome to every new reader who joined in the new year. Nothing resets my nervous system like coming back to the newsletter and finding you here again.

It’s been a hectic start to the year on our side, as we've been prioritizing and executing our plans for 2026.

For many of us, the last month of 2025 was heavy on feedback: we reviewed how we worked and how our teams performed, the positives and the areas for improvement.

For founders, giving critical feedback can be tricky. It becomes especially hard when risks are involved, historical resentments are present, the runway is tight, and the resolution's direction could change the company’s future.

I am always struck by leaders who can give constructive criticism without leaving psychological bruises while still creating real behavioral change and lasting impact.

To kick off 2026, we are going to explore frameworks to help us navigate hard one-on-one conversations.

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In 1999, three social psychologists from Stanford University set out to test how students best receive criticism.

The two student groups received largely critical feedback. The researchers then tested different ways to frame the same criticism and how they were perceived by the student groups. They delivered the criticism in three types (while the criticism itself remained the same):

Type 1: Unbuffered criticism

Type 2: Criticism + High standards

Type 3: Criticism + High standards + Assurance of capability

In this context,

They found that the method that most strongly influenced how well the students received the feedback was the third structure: Criticism + High standards + Assurance of capability.

The researchers called it: the wise criticism.

When the criticism was delivered without the buffer of ‘assurance of capability’, students were more likely to interpret it through the lens of bias and rejection, and motivation dropped. Praise alone did not improve how feedback was received, nor did high expectations alone. When it arrived with both layers, students responded well, and their motivation improved.

The study extends far beyond the educational setting; the psychological mechanism applies to work situations: criticism often doesn’t come across as guidance, and the core feedback the leader tried to convey becomes irrelevant and unhelpful.

What’s more fasinating, was the the researchers behind it weren’t communication researchers but psychologists who studied how people misread each other’s motives in high-stress social contexts (Professor Lee Ross), identity-linked pressure and how it affects performance (Professor Claude Steele), and how to utilize small psychological shifts to change how people interpret threat and belonging (Professor Geoffrey L Cohen).

The key difficulty in delivering criticism is familiar to most leaders: critical feedback at work is rarely processed as neutral information, especially when we have differences in background, seniority, gender, status, identity, and race.

For founders, when the pressure is high and the responsibilities of carrying team members on our backs feel heavier, our critical feedback, which is important to acknowledge, becomes criticism that no longer serves its purpose.

This is why founders often default to two extremes:

When we criticize someone’s work, two messages are received by the receiver at once:

Most leaders focus on the first and assume the second will be inferred correctly. In reality, the second is what most people hear and panic. Wise feedback makes the second message explicit so the first message can be heard and perceived as neutral information.

1) Set the standard first

Instead of conveying disappointment, focus on the standard and the culture you’re setting, and move the discussion from personality to common norms and shared rules.

2) Add the buffer: assurance of capability

One of the most interesting parts of the 1999 study is that praise did not work the same way as assurance of capability. Praise sounds like: ‘You are good.' Wise feedback is: you are capable of accomplishing something difficult, and I am invested in your capability.'

We often reach for praise because it is socially easier, but what people need in times of threat is not admiration but trust.

After giving the criticism, firmly say: “I’m being direct because I believe you can meet that bar.” It turns criticism from a threat into a form of inclusion. It conveys: You are not being demoted from the team; you are being welcomed closer to our culture.

Wise feedback is not about being gentle or removing pressure in a crisis; it is about removing interpretive ambiguity and preventing mistrust. By saying, “This is a high-pressure quarter, and I am going to be more direct. I’m doing that because the standard matters and because I believe you can hit it with the right structure,” you reiterated the performance and protected the relationship.

This could feel unnatural at first because, to an extent, it can feel emotionally exposing, and it forces founders to admit they care whether the team member stays stagnant or grows. Being emotionally distant or detached can feel safer, but it could also make feedback feel more like a rejection.

Most of us think delivering good criticism is about choosing the right words, but this study suggests it is about controlling the meaning behind your criticism. When people feel trusted, they can hear “your work missed the standard” instead of “you missed the standard as a person.”

We often think of criticism as a test of the other person’s maturity, but it is also a test of our ability to maintain standards and a sense of belonging.

For a practical experiment for this week: pick one feedback conversation you are avoiding, and write your opening in two sentences only.

Next edition, we will take this into group conflict, where the question is no longer “do I belong” but “which side am I on,” and why teams turn disagreement into identity attacks so quickly.

As always, hit reply if something in here hits home.

Until next week,
Lavena

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