When leaders ask for feedback, they create a culture of transparency that increases the level of trust on a team. However, it can be tricky to get the feedback you need as a leader to grow. Often employees don’t want to speak up because of the fear of backlash or jeopardizing their job.
Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor, offers some tips about how to solicit feedback. She co-authored a Harvard Business Review article “How Leaders Can Get the Feedback They Need to Grow” with Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy.
Here are the 6 tips to get better feedback from your team:
- Get comfortable feeling “negative” emotions often.
- Have a go-to question you can ask to solicit feedback.
- Embrace the other person’s discomfort.
- Listen to understand, not respond.
- Close the loop: make your listening tangible.
- Make giving feedback – not venting – a team habit.
One go-to question you can ask that requires more than a yes or no answer is “What is one thing I could stop, start, or continue doing to be a more effective leader?” The key words in this sentence are “one thing” because it asks your team member to narrow the feedback to one item, which is a smaller ask than requesting general feedback. Also, starting your question with “what” is more open-ended than “Do I . . . ?” which often solicits a “yes” or “no” answer.
Another tip I’ve found to be helpful is to give your team members different forums in which to provide feedback – during 1:1 meetings, team meetings, via email, via survey, carrier pigeon (!!!), etc. Instead of asking for feedback once per year, make it a regular part of how you lead your team.
To review the six tips to solicit better feedback, read the full article here.