Why Mastering The Feedback Is Crucial For Success As A Leader?

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions” – Ken Blanchard, management expert and business consultant.

Businesses and organizations consider valuable feedback one of the most crucial elements for continuous improvement. While businesses need consumers’ feedback to improve their products and services, organizations promote a feedback culture for employee engagement and development.

Positive or negative, it is essential to give valuable feedback so that the recipient can make the most of it. This article will highlight the importance of helpful feedback and deliver it.

What does feedback mean?  

Communication is the exchange of messages or information between two people or parties where the sender conveys an idea or thought, and the receiver responds or replies to it. This response can be a verbal message, facial expression, body language, action, or even silence. This response is feedback.

Thus, feedback is the receiver’s response to the sender during a communication. It tells the sender how compelling the message or information was. Feedback completes the communication cycle.

Feedback, however, is much more than just the immediate reaction to a communication. It can be questions, comments, and opinions about a product, a service, an idea, or even a person’s behavior and actions.

Why is feedback critical to the process of communication?  

The feedback in communication is as critical as the message itself. It allows the sender to know whether the recipient has understood the message or not.

Feedback can be either positive or negative. Positive means that the receiver has understood the message in the same terms as intended by the sender. That means the sender can continue with the communication in the same manner.

Negative feedback might indicate that the recipient hasn’t understood the message. The message was not clear, and the sender needed to change the manner of communication.

Feedback doesn’t just indicate whether the receiver has understood the message or not. It also shows if the receiver agrees or disagrees with the sender. Responses like a smile, frown, and other nonverbal cues give the recipient an idea of how the person providing the feedback feels.

Feedback improves and boosts communication clarity.

Similarly, the feedback about work, performance, and behaviors ensures clarity about workplace expectation, helps establish a common understanding of the desired outcome and ways to achieve it, and helps a person improve professionally and personally.

What is the difference between feedback and a complaint?  

Feedback and complaints are responses or comments to certain behaviors, actions, or products. Although they might seem the same, they are not.

Feedback can be either positive or negative or a bit of both. It can be praise, compliment, or even reprimand. It serves as motivation for the following action and has scope for improvement.

The complaint, on the other hand, is always negative. It is an expression of dissatisfaction or unacceptance. It can be criticism or reprimand. Even though there is room for improvement, it usually demotivates people.

What is the most effective way to give constructive feedback?  

Positive or negative, it is imperative to give constructive feedback so that it helps the recipient to improve themselves. Especially for a manager or leader, this mechanism is crucial for enhancing the team’s performance.

Here are some pointers that help to give constructive feedback:

• Be specific when referring to an employee’s behavior and clearly define the employee’s improvement problem.
• Try to balance the positive and negative. Begin the conversation by acknowledging the positive aspects, then discuss the negative aspects.
• Feedback is more effective when given personally rather than using technology. Sending messages via email or text may lead to misinterpretation.
• Feedback should be focused on the person’s behavior and not on the person itself. Comment on what the employee did rather than who the employee is.
• Have an informal, private and one-on-one conversation with the employee while providing feedback. This approach saves the person from feeling humiliated or embarrassed.

How do I get honest feedback from my peers, reports, and supervisors?  

Peers  

The simplest way to get honest feedback from your peers is to ask for it. While asking for feedback, one needs to be clear on which aspect of their work, activity, or behavior they need input on. It can be handled personally or through the mail. Positive or negative, one must be open to the input. Thank them when you receive their suggestions, and try to improve yourself based on their advice.

Reports  

To build a high-performing team, managers must get honest feedback from their direct reports. Since most subordinates tend to be hesitant, managers can build trust and solid relationships and schedule regular one-on-one meetings. Once the feedback is received, thank them and act on it.

Supervisors  

Getting honest feedback from the superiors helps the employees drastically improve their performance. But they need to make sure that they are asking at the appropriate time and place. For example, they can schedule a one-on-one meeting or send a request via the mail. Either way, it is essential to specify the aspect on which feedback is needed.

How to give upward feedback?  

Giving feedback to the boss might be tricky. The approach will depend on the relationship between the manager and employee and organizational culture. The process becomes easier if the manager asks for it or has a feedback system.

If not, the person should make sure that they give it at the appropriate place and time, like one-on-one meetings, check-in sessions before or after, and performance reviews.

Here are some pointers:

• Start with an appreciation and give some positive feedback.
• Be transparent and honest when communicating a problem or feeling, but remain professional at the same time.
• Focus on finding solutions and offering suggestions for improvement.
• Watching one’s tone while talking is critical, especially if you share negative feedback.

What is the importance of feedback in terms of positive growth?  

Feedback is an integral part of communication. It helps the sender to understand how the receiver is taking their message or information. However, feedback for specific actions, tasks, behavior, and performance is given more weight in the workplace.

Positive or negative feedback plays a vital role in the recipient’s positive growth. The recipient can be an individual, a team, or even an entire organization.

Feedback need not always be a private conversation. It can be customer feedback, a survey on its functioning, employee appraisal, or training evaluation.

Here are the benefits of feedback:

• Feedback helps to build better relationships with co-workers. Positive or negative, it opens a channel for honesty and builds trust.
• Praise and encouraging comments from the provider motivate the receivers.
• Employees feel valued and appreciated when their managers and co-workers provide positive feedback. It fuels their motivation and boosts their confidence.
• Errors and miscommunication often hinder the workflow. Feedback culture promotes honest and transparent communication, thus saving time and avoiding major mistakes.
• Negative feedback serves as a learning curve. As a result, employees can improve their performance, teams can improve their productivity, and businesses can improve their products or services.
• People often provide suggestions while giving feedback. These suggestions describe what skills to acquire and how to enhance them.
• Positive and negative feedback highlights the strengths and weaknesses of an individual. In addition, this feedback makes them more self-aware and provides a direction towards improving the area.

 

Types of feedback 

You can classify feedback based on tone, intent, or source elements.

 

Roger’s Five Feedback Types

  

During conversations, people often provide feedback. Carl Rogers, a prominent humanist and psychologist, has identified and classified them into five types. 

Evaluative

Evaluating others is also a form of feedback. It can be judging their actions, behavior, or certain statements. Positive or negative, assessing a person’s behavior instead of personality and being objective and transparent about the evaluation criteria makes the receiver more likely to accept the feedback. 

Interpretive

During conversations, listeners often repeat what they just heard. A question usually follows it. This back and forth is to clarify that they have listened to and understood the message correctly. In addition, such paraphrasing allows the speaker to know how the listener has interpreted their message.

Supportive

Typically, most positive feedback is supportive. It encourages and motivates the receivers to continue getting better at their work. However, supportive feedback may include some criticism and suggestions to improve. 

Probing 

Probing asks more questions to get additional information or continue the conversation. The questions are targeted to obtain specific information.

Understanding

Often, people attempt to understand the message and the speaker as a person. They ask questions to encourage the speaker to talk, share their experiences and express themselves.

 

Four Types of Feedback According to CCL    

According to the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), a leadership development organization, there are four types of feedback. These are the feedback a leader or manager gives to their subordinates.

Directive

Often, a manager has to tell subordinates what to do. It can be an order, a task assignment, or a response to their actions or completed tasks. To avoid coming across as an authoritative leader, leaders often phrase their directives nicely. For example, “I suggest you should make this a priority.”

Contingency

A leader must be strict when a subordinate repeats an unacceptable behavior or action. The team member is more likely to listen if the leader explains the future consequences of not changing their behavior. For example, “If you don’t come to the office on time, the company might deduct your salary.”

Attribution

You should not limit feedback to the person’s actions. It may also describe the activity or task in terms of its quality and efficiency. It can be positive or negative, like “You are a talented programmer” or “You never meet the deadline.”

Impact

A person’s action or behavior affects their co-workers or the organization. Positive or otherwise, a leader needs to shed light on the impact of a subordinate’s behavior. This type of feedback usually comes up during performance reviews. 

 

Types of Feedback Based on Tone    

The speaker’s tone affects how the listener perceives the message during conversations. Based on the tone, feedback is categorized into six types:

Positive feedback

Positive feedback is the recognition and praise by the provider to the recipient. It may relate to a completed task, specific action, behavior, or performance.

Positive feed-forward

A positive feed-forward is a comment or suggestion that helps recipients improve. It should motivate them.

Negative feedback

Negative feedback usually demotivates the employee. They often feel attacked and embarrassed. However, it can help the recipient become a better worker when given and received appropriately.

Negative feed-forward

Like positive feed-forward, negative feed-forward is a comment focused on the future. But the difference is that it tells the employee what not to do or avoid doing. It allows employees to stay on track.

Constructive feedback

Constructive feedback can be positive or negative, but it helps the receiver learn and grow. The focus should always be on the work rather than the person.

Destructive feedback

It is probably the most harmful type of feedback; destructive feedback is directed at the person and not their actions. It tends to point out problems without offering solutions and can be detrimental to their growth. 

Workplace feedback  

Praise (Appreciation)

Praise or appreciation is the positive comment a co-worker or subordinate gives for a well-done job. Although an excellent motivator, it can also be an award or recognition.

Criticism

Criticism expresses disapproval or disappointment over lesser quality work. Although damaging, it offers solutions and suggestions for improvement. Thus, it’s constructive feedback.

Evaluation

Evaluation is where the manager monitors and measures the employee’s performance. Performance reviews also discuss the areas for improvement. 

Coaching

During one-on-one feedback sessions, leaders may mentor their team members to improve their performance. It may also involve training.

Encouragement

Appreciation for completed or ongoing work encourages and motivates the employee. It can be informal, like a quick comment or formal during a feedback session or performance review. 

Conclusion  

Feedback is an essential part of communication. Positive or negative, one must always provide valuable feedback that helps the recipient’s positive growth. However, feedback would be useless if the recipient wasn’t open to it. Therefore, acknowledging and implementing feedback ultimately helps the individual grow.