Tell me about a time you received critical feedback. How did you respond?

Situation: During a quarterly peer review, I received feedback that I was making architectural decisions too quickly without enough input from the team. Two engineers specifically mentioned feeling excluded from key technical choices on our core API redesign. Task: I needed to genuinely assess whether this feedback was valid, adjust my behavior, and repair trust with the team — without becoming indecisive or losing the momentum that my decisiveness had also provided. Action: I started by thanking the feedback givers directly and asked for specific examples so I could understand the pattern. The examples were fair — I had made three significant design decisions in Slack threads rather than in proper RFC documents where everyone could weigh in. I made three concrete changes: First, I created an RFC (Request for Comments) template and committed to using it for any decision affecting more than one team. Second, I established "Architecture Office Hours" — a weekly 30-minute window where anyone could discuss technical decisions in progress. Third, I asked one of the engineers who gave the feedback to be my "architecture review partner" for the next quarter, reviewing my proposals before they were shared with the group. Result: The next peer review showed a complete reversal — I was praised for inclusive decision-making. The RFC process was adopted team-wide and improved the quality of our decisions. The engineer who became my review partner said it was the most productive professional relationship they'd had. Decision-making actually got faster because we caught issues earlier through collaboration rather than after implementation.