A reader writes:

I’m in senior leadership at a mid-sized company. My department has a number of processes and procedures that other departments need to follow and my team also handles compliance issues, so I’m often giving instructions or reminding folks of various steps they need to be taking. No matter how soft I make the feedback, no matter how benign the feedback is, I get defensiveness and over-explanation in return. A classic example is, “Please remember to copy [employee] on these requests because they track these for our department.” I expect “will do!” and, instead I get, “I haven’t done this process before, but when I do X other process, I don’t have to copy anyone. That’s why I didn’t know. I’m so sorry! This will never happen again!”

This is true even if I say, “I know you might be new to this process, and this happens all the time so don’t worry about it, but can you please copy [employee]?” and add a variety of happy emojis. And, honestly, I don’t really have the time or capacity to be spending time trying to come up with the perfect email that will not result in someone being defensive. On the other hand, this response type starts to get wearing after a while. I start to want to not tell people that they need to do things differently.

I get this response close to 100% of the time. Is this something I just need to learn to expect in a (very) senior position? Am I reading too much into it and should just accept that employees are going to behave this way when being corrected?

I have mentioned this issue to HR and asked them to consider if there’s a reason, like company culture, that employees may feel afraid of receiving feedback. In the meantime, can I just send normal emails with politely, professionally worded requests and stop trying to create the perfect email that won’t result in someone feeling the need to over-explain and defend?

You can read my answer to this letter at New York Magazine today. Head over there to read it.