Everyone Deserves Feedback
While I was fulfilling the senior advisor role at anAirman Leadership School class earlier this year, the topic of feedback cameup. The class just finished lessons onproviding initial and mid-term feedbacks to their subordinates, a mechanism theAir Force uses to provide formal guidance on performance expectations andevaluation. I asked the class how manyof them felt feedback was extremely important and of course, every hand shotup. I then asked how many of them havereceived a thorough and comprehensive feedback thus far in their buddingcareers, and as expected, less hands shot up. I then asked them, “would you believe me if I told you only a fractionof this entire class will consistently provide feedback to their subordinatesthroughout their career?” Surprisingly,most agreed that it was likely to play out that way.
In my experience, most people do not receiveappropriate, and more importantly, needed feedback in their dailylives. Whether it is work related oreven personal in nature, feedback is important to one’s growth anddevelopment. I personally believe thereare numerous reasons why this happens, and blame can be put both on theprovider and the receiver. These reasonscan range from skills, attitude and maturity, just to name a few. However, honingthese skills through practice is imperative to be an effective leader and avaluable member of a team.
Communication skills and capabilities are vital to any conversation, especially one that can become as uncomfortable as a feedback session. We must be honest with ourselves because let’s face it—some of us are terrible at communicating with specificity and emotional intelligence. Being explicit about the specific behaviors or actions while avoiding a broad generalization of a person’s character is absolutely key when providing constructive feedback. Sometimes we take short cuts and expect others to be able to accept anything we say. However, if you message something and the receiver will not accept it, you must be willing to reflect and possibly take on some of that blame as well. Additionally, only providing feedback when someone needs correction is not right either. When someone has earned positive feedback and words of affirmation, it’s only right to provide that too. The world is filled with leaders who only provide corrective feedback and think that they provide positive feedback as well. Don’t fall into that trap.
Anotheressential component of the feedback process is the attitudeof both the sender and receiver. I’venoticed that when there is an abundance of trust in a professional or personalrelationship, the attitudes reflect, and the feedback is better delivered andreceived. This can be very challengingas trust is not something that can be built over night but can be lost in amoment. However, providing honest and deliberate feedback is also part of building thattrust. Telling someone how they arehonestly performing or how their behavior made you feel is much better thantelling someone “you are doing a great job, keep it up,” if they reallyaren’t. Intent is vital here. Although people may not want to hear thetruth in that moment, if they know your intent is to make them and the teambetter, or even to strengthen your relationship, a mature person will oftencome around and accept it.
This brings us to the component of maturity. The maturity of both the sender and receivercan be critical to an effective feedback session. But let’s be truthful, maturity on both endsis not always a luxury we have. However,the one we can control is ourselves. When we provide feedback, we need to bemature and this maturity often manifests in honesty. I personally believe we often fail to provideeffective feedback because we are too worried about making people feel bad orwant to be likable. We need to get overthis mindset as it often creates the complete opposite effect. If Istrive to be likable over being honest, my teams will see right through thatand question my competence as a leader. Also, we need to set the example when receiving feedback. Having the humility to receive criticism fromyour superiors is important but being able to receive that criticism from yourdirect reports is just as important. We all have room to improve and acceptingfeedback is paramount.
Knowing your people, varying approaches and techniqueslike the sandwich approach, which I don’t necessarily recommend (see here forwhy: SandwichApproach), and many other components and factors alsoapply. Nevertheless, they don’t changethe fact that one’s communication skills, attitude, and maturity are essentialto effective feedback sessions. Not allfeedback sessions need to be formal, informal feedback can be just as effectiveif not more. However, the worst thingyou can do is simply fail to provide it, because everyone deserves feedback.
Editor’sNote: Joe Bogdan is the co-founder of LlamaLeadership, is an adjunct professor of leadership studies and is a seniorenlisted leader in the United States Air Force. He has led various organizations with diverse missions across multiplecountries and currently oversees over 400 people composed of U.S. Military andGerman civilian personnel in Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany.