Ask Purposeful Questions Daily
Teamwork: What did you do today to lend a hand to a colleague?
Respect: What did you do today to acknowledge the work of one of your colleagues?
Learning: What’s one mistake you made in the last week, and what did you learn from it?
Continuous improvement: What have you done in the past week to improve so that you’re better this week than last?
Customer focus: What is one change you made in the last week that came from a customer suggestion?
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G E provided a few sample questions that you could purposefully ask
every day to demonstrate the importance of shared values. Whatever your shared values are, come up with a set of routine
questions that will get people to reflect on the core values and what they have done each day to act on those values.
Seek Feedback
How can you know that you’re doing what you say (which is the behavioral definition of credibility) if you never ask others for feedback on how you’re doing? How can you really expect to match your words and your actions if you don’t get information about how aligned they are? There’s solid evidence that the best leaders are highly attuned to what’s going on inside themselves as they are leading, and to what’s going on with others.9 They’re very self- aware, and they’re very socially aware. They can tell in short order whether they’ve done something that has enabled someone to perform at a higher level or whether they’ve sent motivation heading south.
Soliciting feedback from those with whom he works has been important to Seang Wee Lee, product quality engineer at NetApp, throughout his career. He uses feedback to “further improve my leadership skills, identify shortfalls, and open up communications with the team. This promotes trust in my leadership and creates a climate of trust within the team and with me. I almost always learn about some things I can do to help develop each individual as well as the team, and also me.” Leaders realize that although they may not always like the feedback, it is the only way they can really know how they are doing as someone’s leader. Seeking feedback makes a powerful statement about the value of self-improvement and how everyone can be even better than he or she is today.
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Self-reflection, the willingness to seek feedback, and the ability to then engage in new behaviors based on this information have been shown to be predictive of future success in managerial jobs.10 However, our own studies using the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI)—our 360-degree feedback instrument for assessing the fre- quency with which people engage in The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership—consistently show that the statement which receives the lowest rating, both from leaders as well as their constituents, is “Asks for feedback on how his/her actions affect other people’s perfor- mance.”11 In other words, the behavior that leaders and their con- stituents consider to be the weakest is the behavior that most enables leaders to know how they’re doing! You can’t learn very much if you’re unwilling to find out more about the impact of your behavior on the performance of those around you. It’s your responsibility as a leader to keep asking others, “How am I doing?” If you don’t ask, they’re not likely to tell you.
It’s not always easy to get feedback. It’s not generally asked for, and most people aren’t used to providing it. Skills are required to do both. You can increase the likelihood that people will accept honest feedback from you if you make it easier for people to give honest feedback to you. To be most effective, good feedback needs to be specific, not general; focused on behavior, not on the individual (personality); solicited rather than imposed; timely rather than delayed; and descriptive rather than evaluative. You have to be sincere in your desire to improve yourself, and you have to demon- strate that you are open to knowing how others see you. Table 3.2 provides some tips you might find useful for receiving good feedback.
Of course, just because someone gives you feedback doesn’t necessarily mean that he or she is right or necessarily 100 percent accurate. Consider checking with other people to determine the
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reliability of any feedback you receive. After all, few people see you in your totality. Sometimes the feedback may be more about the sender than it is about the receiver. But remember this: if you don’t do anything with the feedback you receive, people will stop giving it to you. They’re likely to believe that you are arrogant enough to think that you are smarter than everyone else or that you just don’t care about what anyone else has to say. Either of these outcomes seriously undermines your credibility and effectiveness as a leader.
Everything that’s been said here applies equally to your provid- ing feedback to your constituents, which we discuss further in
• Don’t be defensive. People will be reluctant to share feedback if they are afraid of hurting your feelings or having to justify their perceptions.
• Listen carefully. Relax and actively listen to understand what the other person is trying to tell you; be sensitive to how your nonverbal communication is affecting the other person’s willingness to share with you.
• Suspend judgment. Listen, don’t judge. Don’t worry about what you’re going to say, but rather work to understand what the other person is trying to tell you. Be welcoming and assume that the information is intended to help you be better rather than anything otherwise.
• Ask questions and ask for examples. Make sure you understand what is being said and learn about the context as well as the content.
• Say thank you. Let the other person know that you appreciate his or her feedback and that you can’t get any better without knowing more about yourself and how your actions affect others.