Friday Forward - Feedback Loop (#513)

If you want feedback to flow in your organization, you have to model it

Over the past decade, I’ve interviewed hundreds of guests on the Elevate Podcast. While all these guests had great insights, every so often I hear a perspective that forces me to stop and reflect.

That happened during a recent conversation with leadership coach and speaker Jeff Hancher.

An army veteran with a troubled childhood, Jeff began his business career as a blue-collar worker at a large company before earning 10 promotions and rising to a senior leadership role. Now, as a leadership expert, coach and speaker, Jeff has a particular focus on something I’m very passionate about myself: the value and importance of feedback.

There was one point Jeff said that was so poignant that I revisited the recording afterwards so I could capture it correctly:

“You can’t get better without feedback. Everybody listening today is a product of the feedback they’ve been given, or the feedback that’s been missing. That’s who we are. If you’re not where you want to be, you haven’t been given the proper feedback, or you have and you haven’t listened.”

Let’s unpack both sides of that.

First, top performers seek out feedback intentionally, recognizing that it’s a prerequisite for growth. These individuals have learned to separate their identity from their performance and take feedback as a path to growth, rather than an attack.

Great athletes hire multiple coaches. Exceptional leaders invite criticism and often have strong mentors who tell them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. Top performers don’t wait for feedback to be given. They ask for it, listen carefully, and act on it.

On the flipside, when feedback is missing, that absence leaves a different, but visible, mark. I’ve seen promising employees underperform, not because they weren’t capable, but because no one told them honestly what they needed to change. Maybe a manager avoided a tough conversation. Maybe the feedback was too vague, too late, or too sugar-coated to land.

Over time, those missed moments compound. Habits harden, and course corrections that could have been simple become difficult, or even impossible. In those situations, everyone loses: the individual, the team, and the organization.

There’s a third category, too: people who seem to want feedback, but fail to act on it. I’ve seen this time and again. These people, who I call Repeaters, say they want to grow, and they nod emphatically when you coach them. But then nothing changes and you’re having the exact same conversation with them six months later. Repeaters are the equivalent of people who go to the doctor, hear that their health is at risk, and refuse to take the medicine that could help.

As a leader this is always what’s most painful: watching someone fail or struggle because they’re unwilling to improve the things that are holding them back. Sometimes these people genuinely can’t change, more often they simply don’t take feedback to heart.

To give everyone the best possible shot, it’s vital to build a feedback-driven culture. This starts with leaders. If you want feedback to flow in your organization, you have to model what it looks like to welcome it, respond to it, and apply it. That means inviting input from everyone, listening without defensiveness, and showing how it changes your behavior.

When leaders do that consistently, people feel safer offering their own observations. And when leaders challenge managers on their team to give frequent, honest feedback, those managers are more likely to act on that guidance.

Of course, it’s also worth remembering that sometimes the absence of success is feedback in itself. If you or your team isn’t hitting goals, the problem may go beyond bad luck or external conditions. It might be a sign that something important hasn’t been shared or hasn’t been heard.

None of us can see ourselves clearly. We all have blind spots. And the people who offer us honest feedback are offering a gift. As Jeff notes, whether we accept it or reject it often determines whether we grow or stay stuck.

If you’re not where you want to be in some area of your life or work, it might be time to start asking some harder questions and really listening to the answers.

I’d highly encourage you to listen to my interview with Jeff.

Quote of The Week

“What you do not know about yourself, someone else does.” – Unknown

Have a great weekend!

-Bob
robertglazer.com