As a leader, getting productive feedback is hard at the best of times. And the problem compounds as you move up in the hierarchy.
Yes, you may get some feedback during the yearly performance review process. The usefulness of that one-shot feedback is limited though. After all, feedback should be specific to a situation, delivered in a timely fashion.
And if everyone agrees with you, you are doing it wrong anyway.
To get helpful feedback from peers or your own leaders, my go to recommendation is to circumvent the feedback paralysis by asking for advice.
That doesn’t work with those reporting to you though.
Power dynamics don’t need you to “believe” in them
Whether you are aware of your position in an organizations hierarchy or not - your employees are defitinitly aware. You can make their lives easier or miserable, you can retaliate in many different ways, they may even lose their jobs.
Even as the most approachable, kindest, and relatable leader - you are still the one approving (or at least initiating) salary conversations or promotions. The power is real, whether you like it or not.
So how do you get feedback? How do you get feedback regularly? And how do you acknowledge the power difference while also trying to mitigate it’s impact?
Company values, lived reality, and anonymity
As a founder or executive you need regular feedback about your company and about yourself. It’s the only way to course correct and make sure everyone is aligned around both your goal and the day-to-day of “this is how we work here”.
The easiest option is to put up an anonymous form to collect feedback.
The most impactful option is to connect your feedback form with your company’s values. If you take your company values seriously, employees will come forward when you un-intentionally violate your own guidelines. As a result, you’ll start reviewing decisions based on your company values, reinforcing their tie-in with reality.
Some examples, good and bad - from different companies.
➕ The CEO takes a roadtrip across Europe, working frequently from hotel lobbies, AirBnBs or campsides, embodying the company value of “Go, We Trust You”.
➖ Neurodiverse employees and other underrepresent groups struggle after after the company institutes a three-days-in-the-office mandate, undoing past efforts around Diversity.
➕ A company valuing Transparency incorporates salary bands in all of their job descriptions.
➖ A team lead consistently calls out and shames those who make mistakes creating a risk-averse culture even though the company supposedly values “Fail fast, learn fast.”
➖ Frequent meetings outside of family-compatible work-hours disregard the company value of “Family-first”, impacting everyone’s work-life-balance.
Operationalizing your values
Company values (and personal values) are only really valuable (pun intended) when they can be translated into a lived experience. They are supposed to help you make decisions that align your goals (what to do) with your processes (how we do it). The more distributed your company, the higher the importance of this alignment.
You cannot create that alignment top-down. You need buy-in and feedback from everyone else in the company. How are you going to get that feedback, on an ongoing basis and focussing on things you can (and want) to improve?
If you have no idea where to start, check out Ethixly, an anonymous, values-based feedback platform for founders and startups. Yes, I am involved, and yes, we are open to selected organizations who want to try this out as beta clients - so get in touch if your organization could benefit from testing this out with us.
