Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Every action you take
as a leader has a ripple effect
, starting with your team, goingout to the organization and
even out into people's personallives.
Here we offer you the chance tolearn from real-life stories of
leadership so you can gain adeeper understanding and level
up your own skills Fromcommunication to culture, to
power and equity, to feedback,to resolving conflict and more.
(00:23):
Join us and make sure you'recreating the ripples you want.
Welcome to Leadership Rippleswith Leah Fink.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hello and welcome to
Leadership Ripples with Leah
Fink.
Today we are going to betalking about this complicated
piece of how do you actuallyknow what kind of experience
your employees are having, notjust what you think is happening
, but how do you really know.
And today, instead of a storyfrom one leader, I want to use
(00:52):
an example that I've pulledtogether from a couple
conversations that I've hadrecently at a couple different
networking events.
When I share with people aboutthe workplace mental health
assessments that I do, weusually end up discussing this
concept of how you get feedbackand information from your staff
team.
And a trend I notice and thisespecially with leaders of
(01:14):
smaller businesses and sometimesa bit more with male leaders is
this tendency to say thingslike my staff knows they can
come to me with things or I havea good sense of how everyone is
doing, or I know my team wouldtell me if there was a problem.
And in a couple of these cases,when I was having these
discussions, these leadersactually had some of their staff
(01:35):
there.
They were part of theconversation and in these
instances I noticed there was aslight facial expression changed
when these things were said andone even gently kind of
challenged, that they hadbrought up something and it
wasn't maybe fully addressed.
That kind of wentunacknowledged by the leader.
The conversation ended up goingin a different direction.
I think that these leaders weregood people and they had
(01:56):
genuinely good intentions, weregenuinely nice people, they
cared, they wanted to getfeedback, they wanted to do
better, they wanted to supporttheir team, and I can also guess
that if I dove deeper into allof those leaders' teams'
experiences, I would probablyhear some constructive feedback
that they either haven't fullyshared or maybe they felt was
unheard or unaddressed by theirleader.
(02:17):
Now, if you're listening tothis episode, I'm guessing
you're also a leader who wantsto support your team and grow
from feedback, and I'm going toask you to be honest with
yourself for a moment and see ifyou have ever said any of those
kinds of statements likeearlier.
Or maybe I have an open doorpolicy or I always listen to my
team or my staff always call meout on things, anything that
(02:41):
speaks to a confidence that youknow how the people on your team
are feeling or what they'rethinking, and this is not to say
in any way that you've done ahorrible job understanding your
staff If you've said some ofthose things probably some of it
is true.
It's not coming from nowhereand a lot of leaders have
developed trust with their teamsand they are getting some
genuine constructive feedbackand that they've used it and
(03:04):
grown from it.
But I would hazard a guessthere's almost no leaders out
there who understand theirstaff's perspective quite as
deep as they think they do.
We are very good atoverestimating how much we know
about what's going on in anyoneelse's head.
Our brains, naturally as ashortcut, because we need to be
able to do this make theseassumptions and they fill in
(03:25):
gaps and we end up creatingthese whole stories about other
people.
But this is often veryinstinctual, very subconscious,
and so we barely think toquestion it.
We just go along with it andassume it to be a bit more of
truth, and this is on everylevel.
Let's say you have a romanticpartner at home.
Let's say you've been marriedfor 40 years.
(03:46):
You would probably say that youknow them pretty well.
Even with that level ofconnection and trust, if you
start diving deeper and deeperinto their experience and how
they've perceived it and theirviews and beliefs, there will be
some things that you'll learnthat'll be different than you
expected and because therelationship's been so long,
you've spent so much time makingmaybe some of these assumptions
(04:09):
not from a bad place and notthat they're bad assumptions but
maybe you just never thought toquestion something and assumed
that they thought about it theway that you did because their
behavior was the kind ofbehavior you'd had.
But a lot of this is generallyunchecked, it's unconfirmed, but
it might be pretty accurate notto say that it's not.
And I would especially hazardit.
If there are small behaviorsthat you don't like, those maybe
(04:32):
those little nitpicky things,little frictions in your
relationship that you wishthey'd do different, those
little nitpicky things, littlefrictions in your relationship
that you wish they'd dodifferent, they might have a
different meaning behind thatthat is foreign to you, that
you've never fully understood ina way that's kind of allowed
you to understand it better, andthey feel such a different way
about something that you can'tcomprehend or you're not
comprehending that it could befrustrating or annoying or even
(04:55):
hurtful, and those things canimpact your relationship in
negative ways, obviously, evensmall ones, and you may have
tried to give feedback aboutthis thing, you may have even
tried to understand and exploreit at the steeper level, but
often, to be honest, we leavethese things unaddressed.
It is awkward to bring up theseconversations.
We don't know how to talk aboutthem, we don't feel comfortable
(05:16):
with that and you might beworried about damaging your
relationship by rocking the boat, as it were.
A lot of people worry aboutthat and that's in equal
relationships, where a lot ofour assumptions are probably
positive and you have all thistrust built up.
So let's think about the impactthat these are having on
relationships where there is apower dynamic, like with your
staff team.
(05:37):
Now, on this show you may havenoticed if you've listened
before we like to talk powerdynamics and the effect that
they have on how we interactwith others, and something
that's always key to consider,one of the reasons we talk about
this so much is because there'sso much more vulnerability when
you are in that position withless power, like your staff
member is to you as a leader.
Because when you are in thosepositions, your brain reacts
(05:59):
differently.
You react more from this placeof your amygdala that has the
fight-flight-freeze reaction andfear reactions.
And even in healthyrelationships that are very
trusting, there's thisphysiological difference knowing
that this other person has abit more influence and ability
to control something in thesituation than you do.
(06:19):
So if we have a staff memberwho's thinking about their
leader, even if they like them,and we have a situation with a
bit of feedback that they wantto provide, not only is this
person dealing with how awkwardit can be to provide feedback
and how they might not knowreally how to do it best and
they're worried about damagingthe relationship, but they also
have this additionalvulnerability and fear of what
(06:40):
could happen if the leaderdoesn't like this feedback.
Could it impact themprofessionally in some way?
What else could happen if theleader doesn't like this
feedback?
Could it impact themprofessionally in some way?
What else could happen if theychoose to do this?
So maybe you can understandwhen staff say nothing's wrong,
everything's good.
Of course I'd come to you withany problems I'm having.
That might not be the wholestory.
There might be a little bitmore going on there.
(07:01):
Now, on top of this, all ofthis being said, let's say your
staff team are really trusting.
You've done a great job.
They are 100% willing to cometo you with any challenges they
have.
They're happy to contradict you.
That is amazing,congratulations.
Let's add one more layer thatmight be happening to the
situation.
(07:22):
How do you actually takefeedback and what do you do with
it?
How are you ensuring that youfully understand what kind of
feedback you're getting, thatyou know what kind of behavior
change is desired, and how areyou checking back in about it?
Often, as well-intentionedleaders, we take feedback and it
becomes kind of this one-timeexperience and we assume that if
(07:44):
we've changed something, if wechanged a behavior to help this
out, then we've solved theproblem.
We are done, the feedback isgood.
Or maybe you sometimes hearfeedback you realize you weren't
quite willing or able to do thething that they asked about and
maybe you assume that you toldthem or shared that but you
didn't give them actually allthat information, you didn't
loop back to that feedback giver.
(08:05):
And I hear a lot of examples offrustrated staff from both of
these situations that someonetook feedback and they ran
another way with it and nevercame back to it.
Or maybe they just gavefeedback, never heard anything
and nothing changed and theydon't know why and people become
frustrated with this.
This is the same reason that,on a larger scale, employees
(08:25):
don't usually like engagementsurveys or similar, because
leaders get this information.
They try to do something withit.
They often don't do enough tocheck back that their efforts
are moving things in thedirection that they hoped, and
then those problems that need tobe solved don't end up getting
solved in the way that theemployees hope.
And, of course, some of thislack of clarity can come from
the staff.
(08:46):
They're probably notmasterfully trained in how to
give perfect feedback that'lldrive the exact behavior change
that they want.
Maybe they weren't super clear.
Maybe they gave examples ofwhat had happened, but not what
they wanted to happen, andthat's understandable.
It's not to say that they'reperfect and you're wrong, but as
(09:09):
a leader, it is yourresponsibility.
I believe that you should bechecking in and following up.
I think that's a critical pieceof your leadership journey.
So you could talk to them.
Hey, you mentioned that youwould prefer if I was quicker to
make decisions in these kindsof situations.
For the last month, I've beentrying to make those decisions
quicker.
Was that were you were hopingfor?
Yes, okay, great, I'll continuethat.
No, okay, can you tell me alittle bit more about your
experience in this process?
(09:30):
Let's brainstorm together abouthow this could look in your
ideal world.
Okay, I can do that thing, oh,I can't do that thing.
Let's keep talking about it.
That's a big difference.
That's a discussion that happensmuch less often than just hey,
could you give me some me somefeedback?
Or I hope you could tell meabout feedback for this, because
we often put a lot of, if notpretty much all, of the burden
(09:51):
of providing feedback about ourleadership on our staff team.
Now, of course, they are thepeople who should be providing
feedback about how we leadbecause we are leading them, but
they shouldn't be carrying themental load of that, and what I
mean by that is they shouldn'tbe carrying the responsibility
to seek us out, to give usfeedback, to plan that time, to
bring forward something.
(10:11):
They shouldn't be the oneschecking back if something
wasn't the way that they hopedor something's gone wrong with
that to refine the process.
We as leaders should be drivingthat process, doing the
scheduling, asking specificallyfor feedback at regular
intervals, checking in on howthings are going and if any
changes you have made are havingthe right impact, because what
(10:31):
happens is sometimes, as leaders, we get caught in this cycle of
kind of just wanting to makesure that we feel good about
ourselves as leaders.
That's very natural.
If your staff was trustingenough to give you some feedback
, of course you're glad aboutthis.
And then, on top of it, youtook the time and effort to
change some behavior and nowyou're feeling really good about
yourself.
Enjoy that feeling, of course,because you did take some great
(10:55):
steps to be there.
But make sure that that doesn'tstop things, that you don't
just sit in the feeling good andnow won't take that awkward
step again to go, ooh, did thisactually have that positive
impact?
Because if they say, well, Ireally appreciate what you did,
but it didn't quite help me,that's hard to hear as a leader,
but also critical, because youput in all this effort, you're
(11:16):
putting in all this care thatyou want to do better.
That means you need to be ableto keep asking about that
feedback, keep checking in ifyour efforts were actually
helpful.
Basically this is all to sayhopefully not too much of a
soapbox that I hope that you,listening, are deciding to take
on this responsibility of themental load of the feedback
(11:39):
cycle, that you're focusing onoutcomes for your staff, that
you're being aware of whyfeedback might not always be
quite there and how you mightneed to continue to build trust
and relationship, to keepsupporting that, but, most
importantly, to just keep askingquestions, keep being curious
about what your staff'sexperience is heck, go home and
(12:00):
practice with your partner.
Keep being curious about whattheir experience is, what they
actually meant by things, howyou can keep asking them about
improving your relationship.
I think that would be a verypowerful thing for every person
to take from this today.
I think that would be a verypowerful thing for every person
to take from this today.
Because today didn't have aspecific storyteller, I'm going
to leave the follow-up slot forthis open.
(12:20):
So if you want to talk feedbackin the workplace and how you
could improve your own growth inthat area, send me an email to
info at allthriveca and I willdo a draw for a free
consultation slot.
As a reminder to our listeners,if you have a story or a
question that you'd like toshare, we would love to hear it
and have it on the show.
You can find the link for thatin the description below and, of
(12:44):
course, then I will follow upwith a session to say thank you
so much for sharing and to makesure your question is fully
answered.
If you enjoy this kind of thingin podcast form that comes out
on Friday mornings.
You can also find the link forthat in the description and, if
you've been enjoying the show,if you're listening to this on
the podcast, if you wouldn'tmind just taking one second to
leave a rating or review on yourfavorite app, that would be so
(13:07):
helpful for me and I'd reallyappreciate it because it gets
the word out about this.
And once again, I want to thankyou so much for listening and
learning with me.
If we can improve the way thatwe interact with people, if we
can take that burden of feedbackoff of our staff, I think it
would be a wonderful place andwe'd make a real difference.
Remember to ask yourself, as weclose what kind of ripples am I
(13:28):
going to create this week?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
We hope you enjoyed
the episode.
Make sure to subscribe, commentand connect with Leah at
meetleahca.