A lot of people aspire to be leaders. Ahh…The joy of moving up the ladder, the excitement of leading teams, the perceived perks of power, and the thought of making an impact seduces people into this role.
But, let me break your reverie.
Becoming a leader is not as glamorous as you might think. At least, not in the beginning. You find yourself lamenting about your new role and inflicted with the misery-of-a-new-manager syndrome after a few days of taking on the position.
Even when you get settled in the leadership role, it’s like living inside a bubble of loneliness.
Though leadership is glorified as the social glue that holds a team together, but the reality of the corporate hierarchy never lets a leader be “one of the guys.”
This is not that depressive kind of loneliness but more like teetering on the edge of corporate-social oblivion.
You not only get isolated in the social realm but your professional growth starts to get stymied too.
Why? Because prior to you becoming a leader, you were an individual contributor, and your immediate manager was part of the same team. They were living and sweating the details with you. Everyday. If you were an engineer, you got feedback on the design, code, teamwork, client handling, and anything-which-makes-the-project successful. They helped you set goals, and shared periodic feedback for all the things you could improve upon.
But when you become a manager, you start reporting into the manager of managers i.e. a coach. They don’t swim in the same pool as you. They aren’t there to observe your daily rituals or monthly performance.
All of that gets now inferred by your manager through skip level 1:1s, or your 1:1s with her where you discuss your performance and aspirations.
The sphere of receiving direct performance feedback starts shrinking. Even when you get feedback, people hold their emotions back lest they were to offend you. You are their leader now, remember?
There are two ways to go about it — either you drown yourself in the misery of not getting enough feedback. Or, be self-directed, take control of the situation and do something about your development.
If you choose the latter, the approach that works, in this case, is — listening. Yes, listening to the very people that you are leading.
Even though listening happens best in a 1:1 setting, it’s not effective as your team members hold back. Thus, if you need to get a complete picture of your impact on the entire team you should invest in 360-degree feedback with a slight modification that I have come to use over the years.
I call it ‘360 degrees of Action’
Step 1 → The Invitation
Invite your team to give feedback about your strengths, and weaknesses.
You can use any number of methods — forms, feedback apps, huddling them in a room without you — whatever works best for your group. Whatever method you use, keep it simple and safe for them to share.
Step 2 → The Declaration
After you get the feedback, don’t work in silence to improve your weaknesses.
Leaders often close the cycle with their team after taking feedback. Either they presume that their team has mind-reading superpowers and will automatically know the feedback is good for you. Or they simply believe that henceforward, whatever happens, doesn’t concern the team, only them.
Wrong.
Show your team that you value their feedback.
For example — Every year, I start by putting together “This is what I heard, and my plan for it” presentation. It lists the strengths and weaknesses, as shared by the team. And I never forget to thank them sincerely for it.
Step 3 → The Commitment
Commit publicly to the improvement areas that could have a maximum impact on the team’s performance, or your relationship with the team.
Make sure you don’t take on all of them at the same time. I get dozens of improvements(damn my team!) but I only pick the top 2 or 3 suggested areas for improvement. The narrower the focus on choosing the improvement areas, the better your results.
Step 4 → The Validation
Be transparent and share your progress with your team. And then in the next feedback cycle, change the 360° survey to include questions regarding the commitments you had made.
“Did she do what she committed to improving regarding XXXXX?” sets back the accountability to you, and prompts the team members to share if they saw a change in you.
I’ll be honest — There were times I was successful in bringing about a change, and there were times that I struggled for years before I could even move the needle-of-change an inch. But whatever the result, I was always transparent.
The reason why this 4 step approach works is that it lets your team know their opinion is not only heard but acted upon. It acts as a catalyst for them to take a bigger role in your growth.
And this might not be perfect, too.
You may not get to hear the whole story about your performance but you get enough to start asking the right questions. And those questions help you better understand your performance, and behavior.
It would not be surprising if all of this is contrary to the doctrines of leadership ‘wisdom’ that has been ingrained into you over the years.
This is because you’re entangled in the faux hierarchy’s cobweb where you are required to appear confident and bold in front of your team. Where you are supposed to be the one giving feedback. Not taking it.
Do yourself a favor, ditch the power dynamics. Invest in a process where you can get the feedback from the entire team, and commit to improving a few things from what you hear.