If you’re truly going to develop as a leader, you can’t do it without great feedback.
The dilemma for a lot of us is that we long to hear ‘well done’.
And we crave positive feedback enough that it’s tempting to only want to hear ‘well done’ rather than the truth.
I know for me personally, it took a while to develop both a culture and a process for feedback that worked.
Frankly, a lot of the delay was due to my sensitivities and insecurities. I just didn’t want to hear negative feedback.
Don’t get me wrong, I often heard negative feedback.
But it was often from people who were off-mission or who were honestly just negative people. While you can always glean a nugget from even your worst critic, feedback from off-mission or negative people rarely helps you develop to your fullest potential.
You need honest feedback from people who believe in your mission, who support you, and who love you. More than anyone else, they are in the best position to see your faults and help you through them.
Feedback from them is gold.
It took me a few years to figure out how to get feedback from the right people that was deeply constructive.
And now that I find myself in a place where helpful, truthful feedback is part of the culture, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Hearing the truth about your leadership and acting on it is the only way you can really grow as a leader long term.
Here Are 9 Approaches To Get Great Feedback:
1. Ask for it.
Don’t expect people to volunteer their opinions. Some will, but they can often be off-mission, negative people not the people you want to hear from anyway (here’s a post outlining 7 signs you’re dealing with a negative person, and another one on constructing a feedback filter). Ask people who are on mission
2. Surround yourself with people who aren’t intimidated to tell you the truth.
You can find on-mission people who just don’t have the personality to tell you the truth. They are great people, but you need to solicit an inner core of people who are not intimidated by you. Usually, they are other leaders. Feedback from people who are strong leaders in their own right is the best. Leaders who surround themselves with leaders will go the furthest.
3. Look for people who are aligned but honest.
If you find strong, aligned leaders to give you feedback (that’s who I look for in elders for our church), you will never have ‘yes’ men or women around you; instead you will have a team that shares your mission, vision and strategy and will tell the truth to help you get there. Alignment is often difference between criticism that leads somewhere great and criticism that leads nowhere. Here’s the outline of a talk I did recently that offers more about alignment,
4. Don’t be defensive.
This is difficult but so critical. Don’t offer excuses, reasons or get your back up. Tell them why you needed to hear it. Ask questions. Dig deeper. It signals to them you want it, and they (remember they’re leaders in their own right) will know they have not wasted their time.
5. Thank them.
Seriously, thank every person who critiques you. Even the negative ones. You can grow from everything. Saying thank you for criticism is perhaps the biggest signal you can give that you want it and are open to it. Sure, you need boundaries if a critic is going after you, but thanking them for any potential insight signals humility and a willingness to learn. For your best feedback people, it’s essential.
6. Don’t confuse your effort with your results.
This is a note to self. Just because you poured 40 hours into something doesn’t mean it helped advance the mission. I had to get past the idea that trying = well done. A+ for effort but C- for results means there’s growth opportunity. Lots.
7. Show people how they helped you.
Once you’ve processed the feedback, go back to the people who offered it and tell them how it helped you and what you’re doing about it. It’s a signal to them that their time was an investment not a waste, and that you value personal growth.
8. Evaluate using objective tools.
You can cultivate feedback organically through conversations as described above, but you can also cultivate it through objective means like surveys, evaluation tools and outside assessments. We evaluate weekend services every Tuesday using Google Forms. We’ve also used Survey Monkey to get feedback from people. And we regularly use Strengths Finders, Right Path and other tools to help us gain insights to personal strengths and weaknesses and team dynamics.
9. Solicit feedback regularly enough to make it part of your culture.
If you practice the eight approaches outlined above regularly enough, it will become part of your culture. Solicit feedback at every turn. Ask questions. And eventually, people will realize this is not only a safe place to give feedback, it’s desirable and needed to advance the mission.
