As the leader, you appreciate and need feedback as much, if not more, than your team. However, mostly when the leader asks for feedback from their team the response is “you are doing fine” or “I can’t think of anything”. This is clearly not sufficient for your leadership growth.
The reasons why the team are reticent are obvious:
- If you give the leader too positive feedback it feels like you are trying to ingratiate yourself.
- On the flip side, they anticipate only the downside in giving the leader negative feedback.
- The team member may be surprised and not prepared with clear thoughts.
- Humbleness can play a role, with the team member not feeling “worthy to offer feedback”.
As a consequence, the leader rarely receives quality feedback from their direct reports.
The below approach is a safe and powerful way for the team to give feedback, and for the leader to receive much-needed feedback:
- In your leadership team meeting, explain to the team that you require their feedback to continue your growth as a leader.
- Select a spokesperson you trust and who has the personal confidence to provide you with honest, aggregated feedback.
- Be very clear on what you want to learn and what you are asking from the team. Generally, you will want to know about your leadership behaviours, with the team, and across the organisation. Ask the spokesperson to facilitate a discussion with the team (with you out of the room). Below are some open-ended questions that can provide you with clear feedback, however, you may have specific areas where you would like to probe:
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- What does the team appreciate about your leadership, with examples of behaviours that are most impactful?
- Where you are not as effective, what behaviours could you change/improve as their leader to better support them? How could you positively impact the organisation? (With specific examples to help, however, examples are less likely to be shared with you as it may then be clear who gave this feedback.)
- What would they do differently if they were the leader?
- Your spokesperson then considers and aggregates the feedback, which may take a few days. They then sit with you (1-on-1) and provide this feedback. How you accept the feedback is critical; be open, non-defensive and appreciative.
- At your next leadership team, thank the group for the feedback, and summarise some of the key changes you plan to make as a result of their feedback.
- Repeat this process every 6 to 9 months. Over time, you will find the feedback gets better and better as the team learn to trust the process.
Impactful Leadership can help you on your journey to develop as a leader.
Photo by Adam Jang on Unsplash
