Best Ways for Leaders to Gather Feedback
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How to gather feedback from your team (and actually get the truth).
Gathering feedback from your team is one of the most important things you can do as a leader. It’s how you grow, improve, build healthier relationships, illuminate blind spots, and understand the way your communication and leadership style impact the people you lead.
How you get that feedback matters. Below are a handful of methods for gathering feedback ranked by me from worst to best.
If you already ask your team for feedback, good on you. Plenty of leaders never do. Hopefully you’ll find a nugget or two here to add to your toolkit.
First, a quick gut check.
“The first time someone gives you honest feedback and you respond badly is the last time that person will ever tell you the truth.”
Before you ask for feedback, make sure you’re ready to receive it well. You have to be able to hear difficult things, you have to want to hear them, and you have to respond to them well.
Your team is paying extremely close attention to how you react to any feedback. If they think you only want to hear what you want to hear, they won’t tell you the truth. If they think you might retaliate, or that honesty could damage their relationship with you, they won’t tell you the truth. If they’ve seen or heard of you responding poorly before, they definitely won’t.
The first time someone gives you honest feedback and you respond badly is the last time that person will ever tell you the truth. The ultimate goal is a team that trusts you and feels safe enough to tell you the truth so you can benefit from it and build better relationships. (I have made a bunch of Culture Drops on how to respond to feedback and receive it well. I’m not going to dive into that here because this post is about methods to gather it, but I’ll link a few at the bottom of this blog).
The least effective method: An open door policy.
Open door policies don’t work, and the reason is simple. Most people will quit their job before they walk into their boss’s office and say, “Here’s the thing you do that I don’t like or drives me crazy.”
Unless an employee is 100 percent certain their boss wants that information and will handle it well, there’s no upside to risking the relationship. Saying “you can tell me anything, anytime” doesn’t create that certainty. Good luck getting meaningful feedback that is 100% initiated by employees. I’m not saying you won’t get any, or that an open door policy isn’t good practice, I’m saying if that’s all you have in place then you’re doing it wrong.
You have to be the one to initiate feedback conversations and check-ins. Set up the conversations and go after the feedback yourself.
A better option but still not great: Anonymous feedback surveys.
Anonymous feedback surveys come in second to last on this list. They’re good because you are asking for and collecting feedback. They’re bad because you can’t know who said what, so you can’t follow up and address issues with the person.
“In a perfect world, your team members can give you feedback and you know who said what so you can talk it through together.”
In a perfect world, your team members can give you feedback and you know who said what so you can talk it through together. I get asked a lot what I think of anonymous feedback surveys, if they’re good or not? To me, if it’s the only way your team feels safe enough to tell the truth, then yes it has value and is better than nothing. I think it’s better treated as a stepping stone toward a relationship where honest, direct conversation is the norm.
Effective method #1: A one-on-one.
This is my favorite. Sit down with each person on your team once a quarter to have a maintenance conversation and gather real feedback.
Skip the wide-open “Do you have any feedback for me?” It’s too broad and will result in less meaningful or actionable feedback. I use this three simple question framework instead:
What am I doing great? You need to know what your team appreciates and values about you, not only the constructive stuff. That’s key for self-awareness and for understanding your impact.
What are my biggest areas of opportunity? The phrase matters. No matter how long you’ve been leading or how skilled you are, there’s always room to improve.
What would a 10 out of 10 look like for me as your leader? This one invites people to paint a picture of your ideal leadership: how you show up, how you communicate. This question will produce richer feedback than a straight “what should I improve?”
“There are lots of 360 formats out there, and a quick search will turn up plenty of question ideas.”
Effective method #2: A 360 review.
A 360 review is another effective option. Depending on the size of your team and the complexity of your company, it may or may not be fully doable, but you can often run some version of it.
Here’s one model. A third party, like an HR partner, sits down with your team and asks questions in the realm of:
What are this person’s biggest strengths?
What are their areas of opportunity?
What do you wish they did differently?
What are any quarks or pet peeves you have about them as a leader?
Team members share their answers with the facilitator. Next, the facilitator meets with you and walks through the themes and specific comments and distills the feedback to you. They don’t need to share and you don’t need to know who said what. Finally, you meet with your team and say, “Here’s what I heard, here’s what I learned, and here’s what I’m going to do about it.”
There are lots of 360 formats out there, and a quick search will turn up plenty of question ideas. What makes this method so useful is that your team gets a moment to share together, and you get to hear the information privately. If some of it is harsh, you have time to process it with a third party instead of reacting in front of your team, and have a partner in the facilitator to help you respond effectively and thoughtfully to the team.
“Be genuinely appreciative and thankful for your team sharing feedback with you, because their honesty is a gift.”
Make it a habit.
The bigger picture is trust. Build a consistent, ongoing rhythm of checking in with your team. Ask how you’re doing, what you could do better, what they need from you, and how you can support them.
When you do this regularly, you model that feedback is normal, okay, and safe. It isn’t about criticism or favoritism. It’s about wanting to get better and creating stronger, healthier relationships with the people you work with.
If this isn’t something you do yet, start. Be the one to initiate and set up the meetings. Then prove to your team by how you respond that you really do want to hear it and take what they tell you to heart,use it to improve. Be genuinely appreciative and thankful for your team sharing feedback with you, because their honesty is a gift.
Related Blogs:
How To Receive Feedback Like A Pro
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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop
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