Enjoy feedback

Use for the article Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the best boss of them all

Most of us don’t like feedback, especially if it’s critical. It’s hard not to take it personally when someone trashes our ideas or strategies. Yet much as we loathe it, there is nothing more important to working well and avoiding blind spots than getting regular feedback from others.

The people close to you often see the weakness and threats to your career or business that you yourself, busy living your career and running your business, can’t see.

This concept was codified in 1955 by two American psychologists, Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham, who developed the Johari Window, a model which shows the differences between how others see you and how you see yourself.

According to the model, the fact that people have different vantage points from which to examine their environment makes it possible for employees to see weaknesses in their leaders that the leaders themselves are unable to recognize.

History is full of examples of employees helping their bosses find their weak spots.

Meg Whitman, who is now CEO of Hewlett-Packard, is a case study. Earlier in her career, she gave her boss feedback about his leadership style, telling him that he pushed his opinion on the team and that the team therefore had no confidence in or ownership of their work.

He’d had no idea! He was able to use this feedback to change his management style, become a better listener and a more understanding leader.

But you don’t want just any feedback. You want honest feedback. That means you have to actually ask for it.

People don’t often volunteer criticism of their boss to their boss. So leaders have a responsibility to ask for it. That way, even the most timid of employees will feel comfortable telling you what they think.

Another way is to consult a third party, such as an external consultant or an HR manager. Because the feedback is anonymous, it is therefore unbiased