The Power of Feedback
Last month I voluntarily participated in a 360 degree feedback assessment – my first. I invited seven people to serve as feedback partners (FBPs): my boss and Dean of the school where I work, 2 colleagues/peers, a senior member of the business school staff, my best friend and long-time co-author, a senior colleague and mentor from another university, and my husband. An eclectic bunch to be sure, but I selected each one because of the depth and quality of the relationships and because I knew each would be extraordinarily candid in their responses to the interviewers questions about my strength, challenges, and areas for improvement. And candid they were! In fact, one of my FBPs told me after her interview that she would never voluntarily put herself through this process. When I asked why her response was, “I couldn’t take the criticism.” As you can imagine, whatever anxiety I had initially about the feedback was heightened after her comment. I thought to myself, “well what on earth did you say about me?” Naively, I was not fully expecting that “criticism” would be synonymous with “feedback.” Nevertheless, receiving the feedback has proven to be tremendously worthwhile as I learned to see myself as others perceive me. At the end of the day, although it was not a painless process, I view the feedback as a gift of sorts;. and it has caused me to reflect on two important areas: 1) what motivates me, and 2) the impact that my actions have on my interactions with others.
A leader’s motivations and the impact of his or her behavior have tremendous significance to one’s followers. Employees must trust that a leader’s motivations are honorable and in the spirit of service to the organization and its many stakeholders. Sadly, though, we tend to hear more often about the rogue leaders whose misguided motivations spawn bad behavior and poor decision-making. Consider the financial scandals and mismanagement in what were once some of this country’s most respected organizations (Enron, WorldCom, Tyco International), as well as the Bernard Madoff Investment Securities firm which will surely go down in history as one of the most illicit cases of greed and fraud.
But rather than continue to sensationalize those cases, let us praise the countless leaders who toil day after day to create the opportunities that exist for the masses of Americans and others around the globe. These are the men and women who choose to build (new ideas, products, services, and positive cultures), inspire (the best in others), learn (from mistakes and feedback), and challenge (their organizations to be and do better). They do these things not at the expense of others, but because of them and for them. These are leaders who are not only unafraid of feedback, but who embrace it and even seek it out in hopes of having a better understanding of how his or her motivations and behavior impact the organizations and the people they lead. These are leaders who self-correct because it is the right thing to do, not because they are incented through external reward or punishment. These are leaders who live by an internal compass that leads them in the direction of goodness and trust and service. May we all aspire to live up to these ideals; and a good place to start is with feedback.