Episode 215

Feedback on Skills should flow from the expert to the learner.
Feedback on Leadership should flow from the team member to the leader.
The First One is Obvious, The Second One No One Does.

Key Pieces
Use Feedback to Better Position Coaches: There is a difference between coaching & feedback. Coach should be able to tell you what to do, feedback is about learning what you need to do better. You limit the impact of coaches and experts if you don’t have feedback on where you need to grow.

Why:

• I don’t live in the wake of your leadership.
• I can coach you on how to be better in an aspect of leadership that you have identified, but I can’t give you feedback on your leadership – I can only give you feedback on a skill.

The only time I have feedback is when someone skips you, because they don’t trust you, and the feedback goes to me. At which point my best feedback is, “Create a better culture of trust and conflict on your team”.

How you Create that Culture

• Ask people, “What can I do, or stop doing, to better lead you?”
• Why it’s the best:
• Customized- so they can’t be wrong and you remove the pressure.
• Individually- so if there is a group feeling that you don’t listen it’s minimized.
• Note: You’re not going to get everything.
• So then you ask, “What else? I know there’s more”.
• Take Notes, Don’t Defend, Ask Questions for Understanding but not to reduce your vulnerability