What is the difference between judgment and judgmental?

I often get asked if we are judgmental by nature. My answer is "no, but we are protective by nature." This means that everything we do or say we filter through how it affects us. If the impact is going to be negative our behavior tries to protect us and stops us from doing what is requested of us.

For leaders to be effective they need to learn the difference between judgment and judgmental. Let's move away from dictionary answers to the words and instead look at the emotional answers to the words.

Judgment is good. It is what allows you to see right from wrong, good from bad. It is the moral compass that keeps you from stealing and lying. With Outcome Thinking you never suspend judgment but you do suspend judgmental thinking.

Judgmental is when you inflict your opinion or belief on to another person and decide you know why they did what they did. This usually happens because our brain is wired to automatically think "now why would I do that if I was that person?" But as we teach in our classes, that is erroneous thinking that will cause you to have a judgmental conversation with a person and shut them down.

In order to have a good healthy discussion with a person you do want to have good judgment but suspend being judgmental.

Anne Warfield, www.impressionmanagement.com