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5 Feedback Accepting Tactics for Leaders

In any leadership role, a significant challenge is to get the very best from employees. In doing that, the careful balance between nurturing to build confidence and offering constructive feedback can be difficult to achieve.

To help leaders build the trust that is needed to create the most value-creating relationships with employees, one step is not just to offer and provide good, developmental and constructive feedback, but also to receive it too.

For many leaders, being on the receiving end of feedback can be one of the most difficult things to accept. It’s as though a leader feels the onus is on them to be perfect.

The truth is, appearing on a pedestal of perfection is never really true and merely a figment of a leader’s disillusioned perception. And their people don’t even expect it either.

Far better to be real and accept feedback well.

You’re a Leader – So, How to Accept Feedback?

Many employees, even when given a free run at giving their boss feedback, will find it quite hard to do.

Some of the basics need to be in place to have the very best of relationships with your people, so there is an upfront investment in generating good relationships ahead of time.

Even with the most wonderful of relationships with your team, many will be intimidated by you, just because you are their boss.

To help them along the way to your development, there are a few tactics to adopt to make sure that you receive that generous gift of feedback that you can richly benefit from.

5 Feedback Accepting Tactics

1 Accept it Well – When others offer you feedback, it’s vital that you accept it as that gift it is. Encouragement will come when they feel that you appreciate it without any risk to themselves that you might ‘take it the wrong way’ – with consequences to come back to bite them.

2 Never Debate It – The feedback you are provided with is best absorbed without debate. When you are given feedback, their perception of you is very real, so to argue and reason about what you are told will always be counter-productive.

3 If Necessary Seek Clarification – Do ask for detail if you need it. It shows that you are listening; that you value their input and that you are keen to do more to improve.

4 Thank Them -  Accepting feedback with good grace and thanks will encourage them to do it more. And you can only benefit from the input about you that you receive.

5 Act on the Information – This doesn’t mean that you jump to everything you hear. A skill is to interpret what you have heard in your feedback and adjust your actions accordingly, where you feel that change will be valuable. You don’t have to dance to the whole tune!

Good, constructive feedback adds value. The least likely to receive feedback are the very leaders who need to model that they too can respond to the changes they need to make, to be even better than they already are.

And being able to respond to the feedback they receive really is a sign of a truly great leader.

Being the Leadership Model For Feedback

Feedback is a gift that is both widely misunderstood, as well as being incorrectly applied when it is. Yet so many would value the outcomes if a little time was taken to be clear on what needs to happen.

Those dreaded words, ‘Would you like feedback?’ are, oxymoron-like both a carrot and stick at the same time. How could something of such potential value be wrapped around something so clearly set up to beat you up with?

It’s Time for a Rethink

Feedback needs to clearly reflect perspective. And when we think about it, most of us do a pretty good job at what we do, all things considered. In fact, probably 90%+ of what anyone does in their job is pretty good.

Yet how often does so-called ‘feedback reflect and highlight short-comings as that 90%+?

When we give feedback, it’s vital to focus on what people do well – and share with them opportunities to be even better. Feedback is as simple as that, where what people do is proportionally reflected in the feedback they receive.

90% good to great; 10% what might make it even better.

Doing this regularly (so that the ‘Would you like some feedback?’ sinking moment becomes history) makes it more even; more valued and more likely to created important change.

Setting the Example

As leaders, we have an obligation in this, because others look up to us to show the way. When you want to give objective, supportive and developmental feedback, it’s also vital – yes, even as a leader – to take it yourself.

The challenge is to take that feedback and NOT make excuses, give reasons etc., in the moment, but just to say thank you to the person giving you feedback and reflect, both on their courage and generosity, as well as what you need to do differently in response to their feedback.

So often, leadership arrogance tends to get in the way of this, which them precludes their own development and damages the relationship with those of their people who have taken the time to give them the feedback that so often a leader will miss out on.

When You Lose, Don’t Lose The Lesson

Eventually – some might say, regularly – things don’t go completely to plan in our world. Getting over this can be challenging, and it’s always vital that we do, so that we can move on in good spirits.

To help us on our way, ensuring that we understand why the plan didn’t work as we would have wanted and learning from it, enables added value to be gained from losing positions.

Rarely do we get a perfect result from the experiences we have in our lives.

So by ensuring that we add value back in from what we can appreciate to do differently next time, we can make the outcome 100%, even if the goal we achieved was less so.

For the very enlightened, the lessons we learn from the experiences we have, however painful, can be even more enriching than the achievement of the goal we seek.

And the additional benefit is where we take a constructive and productive position when we might be feeling disappointed or let down, we gain focus, energy and emotional strength too.

Which puts a much greater ‘win’ slant on the ‘lose’ it might have been.

From  ’20 Ways to Get Good Karma’ – The Dalai Lama at SpiritualNow

Effective Change Management Comes Fully Inclusive

Change can be a very uncomfortable place to be. Particularly for employees, there are many times where imposed change can make them feel powerless, out of control and ultimately, this causes fear, resentment and lots of other negative emotions.

There is a way to make them feel much better and keep onside the positive asset they already are.

The most annoying element that comes when managing change – especially where you’ve taken the time to build lasting relationships with your people – is to see them suffer with the new challenges they will face.

In fact, it’s even more basic than that. It’s that they struggle with what they don’t yet know and the personal consequences for them as individuals.

Because the nature of change – especially in larger organizations – is to take a step by step communication process, managers usually know more than individuals and yet have to hold back, because of the processes involved. This makes fo even more discomfort, because every employee is anxious for their personal bottom line.

Nebulous and generalized statements regarding impacts will not hold much sway with an individual unless they are able to appreciate exactly how it will affect them personally – and imparting that level of knowledge is not always possible to start with.

Yet there’s a way to enable them to have less time to focus on the unknowns and to constructively contribute to what’s going on. When your people are enageged in valuable activities, they will quickly get absorbed in where they are able to contribute and spend less of their time dwelling on what (only) might be coming their way.

There are many ways employees can become engaged in change.

A key to making this work best is the upfront investment you have personally made to engage your people, well before change has been even hinted at. Do not miss opportunities in your everyday work to create powerful relationships with your people in as many ways as you can – even informallly – because this will be a big lever that will work in your favour in the future, when times might not be quite so simple.

Sometimes, they will be enthusiastically engaged where you have a ‘what’ to deliver as an outcome – or series of outcomes – of changes, by using their skills and experience to come up with some creative – and often unexpected – ‘hows’ of the mechanics of delivery. They will have great ideas – if you involve them openly and honestly.

There will be opportunities for them to collaborate together, to negotiate between them changes they are going to have to deliver which can impact on their personal circumstances.

Where improvements to operational procedures and deliverables are needed, you will be amazed at how varied their approaches can be. After all, even though you’re the boss, you don’t have every answer – and those that you do have will more often than not be the best. (This concept can take a little getting used to for many bosses!).

Where you are able to communicate more fully, their contributions from questions they have will add to the mix for everyone, where you see it as an opportunity to explain and explore answers with a whole group of people. Creating a series of FAQs fromn your teams’ queries will very often prevent you wasting time saying the same thing over and over to many people.

And why stop with change activities utilizing your whole team this way. In a world of wikis and open source solutions, the smart organizations are already leveraging the knowledge, ontribution and ultimately the raw power of the many to solve problems.

One day, imposed change might well be the last way we solve problems. Our people will, in an enlightened business world, have fixed things before they become a problem in a rolling, ultra-inclusive process where all are involved and – deep breath required – bosses simply keep the plates spinning.

© Martin Haworth 2011. This is an expanded version of just one of many change management ideas, from Resilience in Change. For your free – downloadable today – ‘Managing Change’ Super-Simple Success Tips e-book, visit http://www.ResilienceInChange.com

Goals – Bring ‘Em On

For many managers, career development is about putting the hours in, developing performance and skills and then moving up the ladder when the opportunity comes along.

The next rung to climb may, depending on the organization (and how organized they are) be structured to bring the best out of the potential that manager seems to have, dictated by the outcomes of assessments, performance reviews and consequently ‘noticed’ possibilities espied by line managers, project team leaders and others – often in random ways.

The next opportunity comes along on a wing and a prayer and suddenly you’re in the thick of a new challenge, trying to make the best of what you inherit. That can be an established team running well; a poor team who are struggling (‘Where did our last boss go, anyway?’) or a new project where the sheet of paper is blank.

The temptation to get in the thick of what you find is very attractive.

Heads down and see how things show up is an easy attitude to have. Being really busy from the off, shows the team your style of hard work, focus on the short terms and, above all, role-model the level of effort you expect from them real soon.

Smart managers are a lot cleverer than this. They DO invest their early days creating excellent relationships with their people. They show interest in them, listen a lot to show that they care and show they want to learn and understand about them.

And from a very early stage, they use the language of ‘goals’ and ‘expectations’ so that this becomes embodied in the culture of how the team will operate.

Some caution in the goals created will be necessary, of course, to ensure the direction taken is fully aligned with the outputs expected too. That said, there’s nothing wrong with creating goals together from early on in the relationships – and then together tweaking them as necessary.

The alternative of blindly drifting along, is a recipe for only one outcome, a vague set of results achieved with people who are puzzled with what they are supposed to be doing and disillusioned all the more because of this.

Better to have clearly focused goals to start and then refine together, than have ill-defined (if any) goals and no real direction.

Leadership Lessons Out of ‘The West Wing’

Many of you will remember that I’m steadily working my way through the 7 seasons of ‘The West Wing’ boxed set. And so far, it’s not difficult to appreciate why so many Americans (and others) would readily take Jed Bartlett as their President.

There are many aspects of Bartlett that are agreeable and none more so than his tremendous leadership of others.

In an example I watched just the other night, one of his senior team takes an incredibly brave step to ask Bartlett personal details of his relationship with his father. Whilst this might seem a step too far in his relationship with ‘Mr President’, Toby Ziegler is performing an ideal, if rather intimate service to his boss.

Initially, Bartlett is rather incensed at Ziegler’s impertinence and then, in the next couple of episodes, we see the true leadership come through, where he responds to the raw edge that Ziegler has exposed. Bartlett sees past his own bruised ego and ‘gets’ the point of Ziegler’s intervention.

In his own way, Bartlett shows Ziegler how much he values the man’s courage to speak up in such a sensitive area – and, incidentally, an area that Bartlett really does need to investigate.

In too many cases, leaders are so engrossed in their own ego that they fail to appreciate that giving feedback to your boss is a tough thing to do.

Bosses very often intimidate, whether they mean to or not.

To have the courage to give feedback is a rare thing in an employee. Even when they do get brave enough, the handling of this feedback has to be very careful indeed, or valuable relationships will stutter and the most likely outcome is that no more feedback will ever be forthcoming.

(Hint – never start to argue or justify your side of it, just thank them and accept the feedback very graciously and ponder on it honestly).

Great leaders – like the fictional character Bartlett that Martin Sheen plays so effectively – value both the very feedback they are given by acting on it constructively, as well as respecting the generosity and courage shown by the employee who has the kindness to offer it.

We see feedback as a one-way street – often interpreted by employees as ‘criticism’ (and negatively as a consequence) – where we dole it out downwards when we lead others (often more for our benefit than theirs).

Where we graciously accept feedback given that is intended to help us ourselves evolve, we make best use of the gift for our own benefits and also show our people that it adds value and is to be appreciated, which, in turn, makes it much more likely for them to value too when they are on the receiving end.

When we accept and look into feedback that seems hard to take, we are being provided with a perception of us that sometimes – often indeed – is just where our blind spot is.

And that’s such a valuable steer for someone to take the time and trouble to share with us.