Great Leaders Give Feedback & They Give It Often

We know great leaders provide informal feedback to their teams often. At Kingston Human Capital, we refer to this as feedback micro-dosing. 

It is no secret that employees perform better when they receive all three of the primary key-performance inputs from their leader.

These primary key-performance inputs include:

1. Support 

2. Guidance

3. Resources 

However, the best leaders drive more significant outcomes from their employees by adding a fourth dimension to performance-inputs.

Frequent and useful feedback.

Great leaders provide informal feedback to their teams – often, instead of saving it all up for the quarterly or six-monthly performance review. We think of it as feedback micro-dosing and it can happen multiple times a day.

Walkthrough any high performing organisation and you’ll hear the leadership team driving the right performance and behaviours by delivering small, but effective, micro-doses of feedback to their teams. You’ll notice that it’s done with ease. When an organisation has developed a true ‘feedback culture’ you’ll hear conversations like this happening all around you:

Leader to team member “James, that was well executed, in particular, I like how you delivered XYZ. I look forward to seeing you do the same in the next presentation”.

James to Leader “Thanks Chris, I appreciate that, will do. Is there anything you think I could improve on next time?”

Leader to James  “Hmm, the only thing that was not as clear as it could be to our audience in that meeting was XYZ. I don’t think they received you as you intended. I have some thoughts about how you feel you could bring more clarity to that next time [or] I recommend you do XYZ next time.”

Providing frequent feedback in real-time, helps your team members understand what they are doing well. Moreover, it helps contribute to their overall happiness workplace. 

So how do we get there?

Providing constructive feedback in the moment is highly effective, because it helps your employee course-correct, or know what they should work to improve next time. Too often leaders rob their team members of constructive-feedback because they don’t feel comfortable delivering it.

Great leaders intentionally work at building trust with their team members, it’s the precursor to feedback micro-dosing. They also work to master the ‘way’ they deliver constructive feedback.

Great leaders also deliver constructive feedback in the spirit of helping their team members enhance and grow (rather than rousing on them, or making them feel crappy). If you deliver it well, most often it will be well received.

While there is plenty of feedback that can be delivered in real-time, sometimes a one-on-one delivery is more appropriate.

How to use the “More, Better, Different” Feedback Framework.

This is a framework we typically introduce to new team members on the first day with an organisation because it helps them integrate into a ‘feedback focused culture’. It makes receiving feedback routine, rather than something that happens only every quarter. The “More, Better, Different” framework can also be adapted or introduced to existing teams.

The value of this framework is that it is employee-led, meaning the employee has ownership over their own progress. The employee is trained in a framework that empowers them with three easy questions that helps them “pull” feedback from their leader about their progress and performance. It’s quick and easy for new team members to use, and the training time takes a whopping 30 minutes.

Here are the three questions team members learn to ask their Leader: 

1. “Hi [leader’s name], what do I need to be doing more of?”

This question pulls feedback about what’s going well, and what “I” as the employee should focus on delivering more of – it helps me identify my good behaviours.

2. “What specifically can I focus on doing better?”

This question pulls feedback about what “I” am not doing so well, and it helps me identify what I need to improve on.

3. “Is there anything I should be doing differently?”

This question pulls feedback about what I’m doing that might need a bit of evolution or change.

The benefits of the “More, Better Different” feedback framework, are threefold.

• The questions elicit specific answers for the team member.

They pull information that helps the team member identify particular behaviours that need improving or actions that they can do more of because they are on the right track.

• The questions provide the employee with an opportunity to invite feedback rather than wait for it.

This power-shift fuels the employee’s sense of progression and growth.

• By having conversations like these with your team, you are breeding a feedback culture.

Also, by providing team members with psychological safety to accept constructive feedback more frequently, they become better and more confident in their roles.

Many managers believe that constructive-feedback is an icky thing that must be delivered behind closed doors.

We agree that judgement and discretion should always be exercised when giving feedback. However, we’ve also observed that one of the differences between a manager and a leader is that leaders have mastered the art of delivering positive and constructive feedback in real-time.

To do this, they’ve:

• Honed in on their delivery skills
• Built a strong sense of trust with their team members and
• Normalised the practice of giving feedback right from the start of the employee’s first day