The Feedback Follow-Through of Courageous Leaders

Imagine this. You finally received that promotion to head of your division! After all your hard work and long hours, you’re moving on up into a leadership role – not to mention a fancy new office. Naturally, you feel like a million bucks.

As you settle in, a colleague comes to the door. You’ve worked closely together for years, and he whistles as he checks out the new digs.

“Congratulations on your promotion! I’m very happy for you,” he says, a sly grin spreading across his face. “And that’s the last time you’ll ever hear the truth.”

You chuckle good-naturedly and wave him off. Maybe it slips your mind as the paperwork and emails pile up. Perhaps you’ve already resigned yourself to the realities of shifted power dynamics. But that “foregone conclusion” deserves a moment’s pause. Where does this thinking come from?

Traditional Leadership’s Courage Deficit

We didn’t get here by ourselves. Following in the footsteps of those who came before us, we worked the way they asked in hopes of getting ahead. They taught us how to lead by their example.

Most workplaces have (fortunately) evolved from the days of rigid command structures and deference to authority. Not all leaders have, though. Many have simply become accustomed to hearing what they want to hear and being told what they want to be told. 

Let’s not pretend that this doesn’t exist. It’s there. We see it all the time. Want to know how we know?

Tell a leader this: 

We’d like to go out and ask for direct, detailed advice and feedback from a range of people you work with. From your internal co-workers to your external colleagues and clients, we want to know what they think about how you’re doing.

Would most leaders be eager to get these insights? Ha! No. Many of them are scared to death to get feedback! They don’t want to know, even though all of them should.

The Courageous Leader’s Struggle

Leadership sometimes feels like a highwire act. The urge to project confidence and strength butts heads with the need for diverse perspectives to achieve success. Finding the right balance is challenging, to say the least.

Leaders don’t typically know where they stand on that spectrum, either. It’s not like getting on a bathroom scale each morning and seeing, “Here’s where you stand on the continuum between hubris and humility today.”

That mythical scale might not exist, but courageous leaders know of a solution that does. It’s called communication. 

Courageous leaders make the effort to ask colleagues questions like:

• How am I doing? 
• How can I improve?
• What do you think?

Most leaders know they should ask such questions… and then some. Seeking feedback like this probably helped them land their leadership role in the first place. But courageous leaders welcome answers (even critical ones). They realize it’s the best way to improve the performance of their team and themselves. 

When we shrug off feedback, our teams stop giving it honestly. Why would they risk telling you what you need to hear when it won’t make a difference? The truth is conspicuously absent or, at the very least, watered down. That’s not healthy for the company culture or your long-term success.

The True Cost of Cowardice in Leadership

We live in a world obsessed with “company culture.” From snack bars to nap pods, bean bags, and beyond, business leaders today know that talent attraction and retention means cultivating an environment where people want to work. 

Part of the culture puzzle involves productive communication. Talk of “open door policies” and “horizontal structure” abounds, but that doesn’t mean leaders are listening. In a global survey conducted by workforce technology firm UKG, 67% of employees felt their voice had been ignored by company leadership. A third indicated they would rather quit or switch teams than provide honest feedback to management.

That adds up to real money. At companies outperforming their competitors, the same survey found that 88% of employees felt engaged and really heard by management. With engagement the leading indicator of attrition and retention issues costing American businesses $1 trillion yearly, listening isn’t just courageous. It’s profitable. 

Courageous Leaders Do More Walking, Less Talking

Management likes to assure their employees that they’re listening. From client surveys to employee performance reviews, they set up structures that at least give the impression of openness to feedback. 

That’s a good starting point. But when there is no follow-through on the feedback a leader receives, the efforts feel like little more than lip service.

Sometimes this happens because leadership never actually cared about the feedback. In other cases, procrastination dressed up as prudence offers cover. Leaders will say, “Well, I solicited my people and clients for feedback. I’ll have to study these further at some point.” 

Nice try. You’re not done. Not even close. Because you have to do at least some of the things they said. Courageous leaders take action.

The laziest of leaders brush off feedback by defaulting to those traditional leadership styles. They use their experience and responsibilities as shields from critique, devaluing employee voices. 

After all, they are in charge. They clearly know best. Right?

Wrong. This is an attitude of not listening and no commitment to change. These leaders let arrogance get in the way of humility. It hurts not only them but the company, as well.

Casting a Wider Feedback Net

It may be tempting to run through an assessment or workshop one time and gauge yourself from that single experience. Truly courageous leaders know top performance requires ongoing feedback from their team, clients, and strategic partners. 

But this ongoing communication too often stops at the office doors. For example, I’m surprised by just how many professional service firms don’t have any outside advisors on their management committees or boards. It doesn’t make much sense. After all, these firms would never think of advising one of their clients to forgo all outside opinions, right? 

Both executives and up-and-coming leaders alike stand to grow from such diverse perspectives. Just because an outsider, such as a client, isn’t a daily part of your industry doesn’t mean they don’t have invaluable feedback to offer. In fact, outside perspectives may be the most useful because they will likely be the most truthful. 

Pushing Back on Catastrophizing

Many leaders fret over the impression given by seeking the opinion of people other than their team. Common things we hear include:

• “It’ll call attention to problems, and the client will think twice about working with us.”
• “Some of our people will question my leadership more and want to leave.”
• “It’s not good for the culture to dwell on everything that’s wrong.”
• “They’ll waste time talking about things that don’t make us money.”

These fears rarely come to fruition. Instead, the exact opposite usually occurs.

Clients and other members of the organization appreciate being asked for input. As Jennifer Porter, Managing Partner of the leadership and development firm The Boda Group, explained in the Harvard Business Review: 

When you listen to and genuinely explore your colleague’s different, and possibly risky, perspectives—even if you disagree with them—you are rewarding their candor. Acknowledging your weaknesses or mistakes along the way are great ways to be open and vulnerable.

Seeking feedback strengthens relationships inside and outside of the organization. Courageous leaders do not fear critique and prioritize growth. This willingness to be vulnerable projects more strength and confidence than any show of machismo ever could.

Teamwork Helps Courageous Leaders Move the Ball Down the Field

Let’s go outside the business world for a moment. Think of every professional athlete you’ve watched and admired. We’ve actually talked to a nice sampling of people involved in the sports world as part of our leadership research. From general managers to agents to coaches, we thought they would tell us that the athletes they regularly deal with are some of the most arrogant people to walk the earth.

Not so. They insisted the best of the best performers are admired not only for their athletic prowess but their humility. Even with all the fame and fortune in the world, these talented individuals are often as humble today as they were in their first year.

If you follow any kind of sport, you’ve seen plenty of evidence of this at work. What does an athlete say after winning a championship? They couldn’t have done it without their teammates, management, and – yes – the fans. Maybe they talk about how they were lucky to win, considering some of the mistakes they made. They are lightning-quick in their ability to give credit to others and shrug off the praise themselves.

This is not just “for show.” They have a deep, sincere desire to get better and better every year so that they can have a chance to repeat their success. Truly great athletes welcome feedback from coaches, trainers, and teammates. That feedback gets them from one win to the next.

Think about what that athlete would be without humility and a commitment to learning. What would you have left? A bad teammate, uncoachable player, and future has-been.

Probably at least one of those, right? All the talent in the world can’t trump humility and effort. That’s the difference between five minutes of fame and becoming a legend.

Most business leaders identify with the competitiveness of athletes at least, with 95% of Fortune 500 CEOs having played sports at some point in their life. But the best of those CEOs? They know that courageous leaders need the humility of athletic icons.

Courage = Collaboration

As we ascend the leadership ladder, the truth may feel more difficult than ever to find. But is it really? Or are we afraid to encourage honesty? Do we make it harder for others to offer?

Real leadership requires that we put aside antiquated notions of power. It takes vulnerability and humility. We will only become courageous leaders once we embrace this as a true show of strength.  

Work with your team. Listen. Learn. Act. It’s that simple.

Speaking of growing from outside perspectives, your board of directors can be a great resource if you play your cards right. Our on-demand Board of Directors Bootcamp webinar series will give you the tools to maximize your board’s value, tackling topics like:

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This is an updated version of an article from 2017. ©2023. DailyDACTM, LLC d/b/a/ Financial PoiseTM. This article is subject to the disclaimers found here.