Why managers need to seek more feedback on their own performance
The way managers operate can have a major impact on the engagement and performance of their teams, yet managers themselves don’t often receive quality feedback on how well they’re managing those they supervise.
Only 40% of employees say they’ve had the opportunity to formally provide feedback to their manager, and about 25% said they have formally rated their manager, according to a survey from Gallup including responses from over 2,000 managers and over 12,000 workers.
“Their ability to get feedback and continuously improve is fundamental to the company’s success,” said Josh Bersin, global industry analyst and CEO of the Josh Bersin Company. “In a perfect world, the manager or leader should be constantly asking for feedback. What can I do, what can we do to make this place better,” he said.
Ultimately it comes down to whether a company’s culture fosters open and honest communication that can lead to constructive conversations and steps forward, workplace experts say.
“Feedback can be a sensitive topic and we want to make sure people are prepared to both receive it and give it,” said Ben Wigert, director of research and strategy for workforce management at Gallup. Most managers and employees aren’t adequately trained in giving proper feedback or receiving it well, which is one place to start. “A lot of times that’s where organizations under-invest, they don’t always put enough effort into the training and communication and change management upfront so that we can have a constructive conversation,” he said.
Another key issue is the general lack of channels to give and receive proper feedback, as illustrated in the survey. Staff might be asked to give general notes about their manager at the end of their own performance reviews, but feel unclear about what happens with that information. A better method is to survey staff in a more evaluative manner, asking them targeted questions like where they think their manager’s strengths lie, and what they can improve on. Collecting that information anonymously can also help encourage staff to be more open and honest.
And a lot could be done with that feedback. Gallup’s survey also looked into managers’ blind spots and how they evaluate their own performance, finding 40% of managers acknowledge they have not yet become proficient in engaging and managing their team’s performance. About 60% said they are not proficient when it comes to developing employees and helping them create career paths.
Managers however are overconfident in their ability to give adequate recognition for good work, the level and quality of feedback they are providing, and their role in fostering team collaboration. Simply hearing that directly from staff through proper channels could lead to constructive conversations around how to improve, Wigert said.
But at the same time, managers themselves should be more actively seeking feedback. “The problem that we see in a lot of organizations is that we focus more on feedback giving than we do on feedback seeking,” said Brent Cassell, vp advisory for HR at Gartner. “I imagine employees do not lack for feedback about their managers. What I wonder is, are managers actively seeking out the feedback that they need?”
When managers proactively solicit feedback on their own performance it signals to employees that they’re really listening and willing to do something about the feedback, he said. “So I think formal feedback channels are important, but we also have to create room for informal channels, because I think we often overlook how important they are,” Cassell said.
“I think that with each passing year, employees expect more and more from their managers, so I also have to wonder, are managers perhaps afraid of asking employees for that feedback, because they’re afraid of what those employees are going to say?” he said.
Managers should also be asking for feedback more frequently from peers. And about a third of managers said they’ve received feedback from their peers, like other managers, through a formal process, the Gallup survey found. Whether formal or informal, it’s highly important for them to learn more from their peers, Bersin said.
“When you have people at the same level coming together and talking about issues, then people suddenly feel very psychologically safe, and they’re willing to say, ‘you know, I’m having this kind of problem, what have you found?’” Bersin said.