There are many leadership styles, many models, a lot of theories, and even more advice to apply. To choose which models/theories/principles are used best, is related to the specifications of your team/organisation, the structure, your personal preferences, your personality type, the number and level of people you work with,... but over all those tools and advices, there is one thing that is always coming back, independent of all circumstances and background.
The one thing that you, as a leader, should definitely work on!
Read this blog to find out what it is!
Let's name it straight away: it's
FEEDBACK!
And now many of you will be disappointed and not willing to read a long, because you're thinking:
"Yeah, I already know that one! Is it really that special?".
But please stay with me, there's much more to it then what you know.
Let me be clear: feedback is indeed a subject that is spoken about a lot. And probably a lot of you already know a few different styles or techniques to give feedback. But remember this quote:
"If you only know a hammer, every problem will look like a nail!"
That surely applies to feedback. Yes, those models and techniques are important, because they give you a solid framework to apply it, but if you don't get and support the real meaning behind it, it will never be something more than just a technique.
Real feedback is crucial for every organisation, and it is crucial for every leader to steer on the real meaning of feedback and make sure that it is understood and used within the team!
The origin of feedback lays in process control. If you want to automate a process, then feedback is a crucial part of the steering loop. Imagine a very simple process like filling a vessel with water, and keeping the water on the same level. Without a simple feedback loop, that would be an impossible task. You need to know the water level in the vessel to adapt the flow.
The more precise you know the water level, the better the automation will work, without overshooting or undershooting.
Exactly the same applies to your team or organisation. The better the quality of the feedback, the smoother everything will work. It's also a form of automation: no time is waisted on things that don't matter at that moment.
Now what makes 'human feedback' (the feedback we give each other) more complicated than 'sensor feedback' (for example the electrical signal of a sensor about a water level in a vessel), is the fact that a sensor has no emotional/psychological system. The sensor just gives feedback regardless of what the controller might think about it. The sensor will not have a better feeling when transmitting the signal that the vessel is full, nor will the sensor feel scared when telling that the vessel is empty. It's just a signal.
If we -as humans- have to give feedback to each other, then our empathy makes it more difficult. Every behaviour we show, creates another behaviour at the side of the one who is receiving/viewing that behaviour (to understand more about that process, also read this blog:
"How your behaviour has a bottom line effect").
So it's much harder to give feedback about something negative towards a person we like, or to give feedback about a personal border towards someone we perceive as (mentally) stronger.
Even with the feedback tools, which we have probably all learned somewhere in a leadership course, it still stays very hard to really give the feedback because we can not deliver our feedback in a neutral way like an electronic sensor can do it. We always have our own feelings about it, or about the reaction we expect to receive when giving the feedback.
But still feedback is essential to manage your team/organisation, just as it is essential to control an automated process.
So for you, as an ambitious leader, it is absolutely necessary to get the emotional part out of the feedback. Feedback is returning information. Nothing more, nothing less. And that information is crucial for the progress of your business.
That returning information can be about many different subject: about things that have happened, about personal behaviour that you or somebody else shows and the effect of it on others, about inventory levels,...
But the funny thing is that we perceive the one as more loaded then the other. Although it's still nothing more than just returning information: we placed an order, this is the new inventory level; you showed that behaviour, and I don't like it because it has this effect on me.
Simple, straightforward, and the beginning of every learning and control loop.
To do this, you -as a leader- have to set an example:
- accept every feedback given to you, without loading it with an emotional reaction
- give feedback to everyone, without making it more loaded then it should be
And of course:
do something with the feedback! If the water level sensor transmits a signal to the valve controller, but that controller doesn't react on it, the water level in the vessel will still not be right. The same applies to you! If you receive feedback, and you don't do anything with it, then what is the use of the feedback?
If you start applying these background principles of feedback, then you create a culture of openness, of learning, and of self regulation. Perhaps the classical feedback tools will then even become obsolete, without sacrificing the positive effects of it!
Creating the right context in which your team/organisation can bloom, that's probably also your biggest added value as a leader. And installing the context for feedback is a good starting point for that.
So go ahead, and start right away with asking and giving non-loaded feedback!
If you want to learn more about this topic, then apply for the free online teaching moment around feedback on the 15th of March via the
Facebook page of The Happiness Factory.
Register here, and stay informed about all the practical details:
Click here to register for this LIVE Teaching
Written by
Dennis Fredrickx, the Business Booster
Dennis helps Ambitious Leaders to reach more in an easier way.
.jpg)
