Feedback–both given and received–is a critical component to leading effectively. What makes it essential is not so much how feedback can guide and adjust the performance of those being led. Rather, feedback is about creating a level of understanding and trust between the members of the group that will allow them to construct a space of even greater trust necessary to work together for the best possible outcome for the group.
Leaders often think of giving “constructive” feedback–designed to help another person adjust their behavior to perform at a higher level–as a key part of helping an individual align to expectations. In their HBR article “The Feedback Fallacy,” Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall note that people are terrible at assessing another person’s performance relative to abstract attributes such as “leading a team or creating a strategy.” Instead, the leader should focus on giving feedback that focuses on a person’s behavior and the impact that behavior has on the leader or group. This feedback will allow the receiver to gain more insight about which behaviors are most helpful for group functionality.
Leaders often think about giving feedback as a means of altering behavior. Unfortunately, even the best constructed and delivered feedback that desires a behavioral change rarely has that effect. As Buckingham and Goodall note, “the research is clear: Telling people what we think of their performance doesn’t help them to thrive and excel, and telling people how we think they should improve actually hinders learning.” Similarly, feedback is often much more about the giver than it is about the receiver’s performance. This leaves the leader to ponder, “if feedback is a critical tool for leading, how might I utilize it for the good of the group?” 
Leadership can be defined as helping a group to solve a novel problem. Given that, the goal of feedback is ultimately to aid in learning, and learning is a key part of the process of a group solving such a problem. How does a leader create an environment ripe for learning? In the Hidden Brain Podcast, Relationships 2.0: What Makes Relationships Thrive, psychologist Harry Reis notes that people want to be seen and understood. People with vastly different perspectives can function together at a high level if they feel that the other person understands them. Agreement can be helpful, but understanding is the most important part of a functional relationship.
With that in mind, a leader needs to use feedback–receiving being more important than the giving–to create connection and shared understanding. By asking questions that help group members share feedback to increase shared understanding, the leader helps release the hormone oxytocin in group members. Oxytocin helps create connection and a feeling of security so essential to helping a group function at a high level. That gathering of feedback also helps the leader know which behaviors are helping group members and which are not.
When we think about leaders, the leader needs that kind of feedback even more than those who are contributing to the group. The leader has difficulty getting “perspective on [one’s own performance] and [to] see its patterns and components.” A leader who is open to feedback about how their behavior impacts others will have a better sense of their own performance and will be positioned to help support those in the group. All of this helps foster a high level of trust, one of the key measures of a healthy group.
As a leader looks to reach their own level of excellence, they need to understand the iterative and adaptive nature of leading. Each interaction, each challenge, offers the leader and the group an opportunity to learn and develop through the on-going (and never-ending) process of leadership.
Given all of that, what is the real purpose of feedback? In simplest terms, feedback creates trust and understanding between members of a group, enabling team members to feel valued, seen and heard, ready to share ideas, and challenge one another in the pursuit of a common mission (or goal).
Remember, good feedback:
- Describes a specific behavior
- Describes the impact of that behavior
- Describes how the giver of the feedback feels as a result of the behavior and its impact
Here is a scenario. I have just arrived late to a meeting. If we have built a communal culture of feedback, any member of the meeting might provide me the feedback as follows:
Jeremy, you showed up late to our scheduled meeting.
Your being late causes our team to be less productive.
I am frustrated by that.
That a group member trusts me enough to share their feedback is essential to my understanding the impact of my behavior on them, to our group feeling a shared understanding of our experience together, and to guiding how we choose to engage one another.
My response to this can be any number of things from “I’m sorry for being late” to an explanation or acknowledgement, and the benefit of this is that we all understand each other better, having a higher level of trust and being better prepared to work together to solve meaningful problems.
Receiving feedback happens best when a person asks questions to understand another person’s experience. Critical to this, the asker does so without assumptions about the other person’s experience and in ways that aid the giver of feedback to describe behavior, impact, and how they feel.
If a person utilizes feedback to explore what excellence looks like and to increase trust and understanding amongst a group, they are doing a critical component of leading effectively. The gcLi definition of leadership notes that, “Leadership entails being aware of whatever is happening around you and choosing behaviors, from a place of empathy and courage, that help your group to achieve its goals.” Giving and receiving effective feedback increases the leader’s awareness, allowing them to better choose those behaviors that are central to the group’s ability to work together and, by extension, to succeed.
As we consider the Pedagogy of Leadership®, a teacher needs to utilize feedback to enhance the learning of individual students and of the group. While feedback rarely changes behavior, it critically increases shared understanding when given effectively. Feedback delivered both effectively and with the right intention enhances learning and helps teachers create the next generation of leaders.
Hidden Brain Relationships 2.0: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relationships-2-0-what-makes-relationships-thrive/id1028908750?i=1000587808478
HBR The Feedback Fallacy:
https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-feedback-fallacy
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Jeremy LaCasse, Executive Director of The Gardner Carney Leadership Institute, is currently Assistant Head of School at the Taft School. LaCasse held the Shotwell Chair for Leadership and Character Development at Berkshire School. He also directed the Ritt Kellogg Mountain Program; served as Dean of the sixth and fourth forms; taught European history and Medieval history; and coached the ski and crew programs. Following his time at Berkshire, he served as the Dean of Students at Fountain Valley School of Colorado, and following FVS, he was the Head of Senior School at Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh, PA; the Head of Kents Hill School in Kents Hill, ME; and the Assistant Head of School at Cheshire Academy, in Cheshire, CT. He graduated with a B.A. in History from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and earned an M.A. in private school leadership from the Klingenstein Center, Teachers College at Columbia University.