“You can go out and train, but you alone cannot train yourself.”
--Influential leader from somewhere in my past…
The quote is from a leader I served with many moons ago. I received this pearl as a young officer while I was briefing him on my upcoming field training exercise for my tank platoon. The briefing went well until I was asked what was the evaluation plan? How was I going to receive feedback on what my platoon was doing to standard, not to standard, and areas of my leadership that could be better?
Well, I had not planned for that. I assumed that just going out and running around the terrain at Fort Hood, TX, with my five tanks for a few days was training, and technically it was. But what I was missing was that my platoon and I were not setting ourselves up to be trained, with another set of eyes and ears to give us feedback. And resources were too constrained (this was in the early 1980s) for that critical aspect of training to be left out. I’d overlooked one of the most important aspects of training.
So, I had to come up with a plan—a fellow platoon leader and his platoon sergeant—to accompany us on the exercise, to be the eyes and ears, to give us that feedback, to help train us. And, it was effective, for both them and for my platoon and me. And it is a lesson I carried with me for the rest of my career. No training in any unit I led ever took place without evaluation and feedback, always against existing standards. Otherwise, we were just wasting precious resources.
Human nature being what it is, it is difficult for us to honestly assess our own behavior. We see our actions through internal filters that may or may not be accurate. We tell a joke and we think we are hilarious. We give a talk and assume we’re brilliant and really connected. We make a mistake and believe we’re the most incompetent person in the world. Not until we receive external feedback are we able to see a more balanced view of our behavior. When nobody laughs at our jokes, we recalibrate our view of being funny. People fall asleep during our talk, and we rethink our brilliance. Our boss tells us he made the same mistake starting out, and we understand that we are as competent as the next person.
If only it were that simple!
Giving and receiving good feedback is not a generally transmitted trait. It’s a skill we must learn and master. And it’s fraught with multiple ways of going wrong…why? Because we often feel vulnerable when we’re on either side of this kind of discussion. Feedback often leaves us feeling exposed, both as a giver and as a recipient of feedback. Leaders striving to lead effective teams where feedback is an effective developmental tool for all must first themselves model and instruct their teammates on how to give good feedback. At the same time, they must be mindful of what might be working against their efforts to do so. What might those resistant factors be?
First, the organization’s culture. If an organization is top-down, hierarchical, and authoritative, it is extremely difficult to create a space for effective feedback. The culture is likely set up to support only results-focused, one-way communication. Second, the myth of the title often creates barriers. By this I mean real or inherent titles that put leaders on pedestals—such as “President,” “CEO,” “General,” “movie star,” “diva,” “head coach”—can tamp down the willingness of subordinates to give honest feedback. Third, feedback doesn’t flourish easily in organizations run by an authoritarian who leads by whim and edict. For example, does anyone think that Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and some of our own politicians, welcome and solicit feedback from those around them? Highly doubtful. Finally, a litigious environment, where formal complaints and lawsuits are a go-to response to any slight or misunderstanding, doesn’t bode well for implementing a robust evaluation culture.
While these situations make it more difficult, good leaders can work withing their own sphere of influence to model how to provide worthwhile feedback outside of the formal process, which is likely only once-a-year at performance review time.
Some might ask “Why bother?” If it makes the giver and receiver so uncomfortable, if the feedback process is challenging, if there is potential for hurt feelings, defensiveness, accusations, etc., is it worth the effort to invest? I say emphatically Yes!
Not one of us in the world of leadership—and we’re all leaders in some capacity in our lives—has it all figured out and needs no improvement in how we lead, interact, relate. No one. We’re all works in progress—if we’re honest with ourselves, that is. Many leaders are not, for fear that being vulnerable and acknowledging they have some areas of their leadership they’d like to improve will somehow make them appear weaker, be less effective, lose credibility. They’re afraid to confront their own realities. Perfect leadership does not exist…there are always areas for improvement, and great leaders acknowledge this reality and seek ways to be the best they can be.
Fundamental to giving and receiving effective feedback is a level of trust between the giver and receiver. A feedback-friendly environment requires the establishment of trust, which is fundamental to any relationship, personal or professional. Like setting expectations, this must happen early in the process. Patrick Lencioni in his brilliant book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, rightly states that without a foundation of vulnerability-based trust, no team will be effective. Without vulnerability-based trust there will be a resulting fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. And the operative word in highlighting the criticality of trust is vulnerability.
Back to that tank platoon training exercise, over 40 years ago. I received some invaluable feedback, personally. My fellow platoon leader was a good one, knew his craft, and was an invaluable asset. One thing he told me was that while I was decisive and knew the doctrine, I spent too much time on the radio giving instructions to my platoon and that I needed to tighten it up—get on, say what I needed to say, and get off. It was powerful. I learned from that; namely, to think before pushing the handset to transmit. Throughout the rest of my career, I was a stickler for radio procedures, running a tight command radio net, and giving feedback to those who droned on. Too much important traffic needed to come across the command net, so it had to be efficient and well-run. And, what a great lesson for life in general—thinking before engaging our biological means of transmission—our mouths. I’m not saying I have it totally squared away, but I continue to work on it, as I am a work in progress.