Leadership Feedback Analysis

𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 I've been asked this at least 3 times in the last two months. "How do I know that my leaders are improving?" This is where we distinguish knowing from application. 10% of capability comes from learning from formal sources. 20% comes from networks and interactions. 70% comes from application to portfolios and projects. One thing that sets this all apart are data points. Even if I apply skills to my projects, how do I know I did it well? Most large companies have a 360-degree or leadership assessment process in place. So, I'll share my thought process for this in case you are attempting to develop this for your own organization. Step 1: Determine organizational strategy and business outcomes. This is necessary to align expectations of desired behaviors. This is where a Balanced Scorecard can come in handy. Step 2: Assess expectations of leaders. You'll then assess them across leadership behaviors for new, mid and even senior managers. Granularity of differences supports focus and clarity. Often, a list of pre-existing behaviors/competencies are used to make the exercise easier. Validated psychometric tools such as the 16PF help to anchor it to scientific rigor. Organizational psychologists like me conduct surveys to gather insights. Then, focus groups are used to drill down to details information. After that, we'll create categories basedon the information and produce working behavior-based definitions. Step 3: Prioritize the list Now, the leadership team decides which behaviors are more important by way of ratings. Step 4: Build the 360 We then build a 360-degree feedback survey questions. These questions are reviewed for validity. Step 5: Allocate the survey A system specializing in the 360 (there are many) can be used. Feedback Recipient selects 6 to 12 people to rate them. In organizations, to avoid selection bias, leaders of the feedback recipient can review and veto the people doing the rating. Then, the participant does the survey too (self-rating) Step 6: Debrief of survey Usually, participants need guidance from a trained coach who understands feedback requirements. This is to provide grounding and objective input. Often, 360 surveys tend to be met with resistance unless the coach is skilled in facilitating the reflection conversation. Step 7: Action Planning The participant then produces a set of actions for improvement. This plan and the priority of focus should be made known to the feedback givers. Step 8: Pulse Surveys After a designated time (within 6 to 12 month period) a validated pulse survey is set up for the observers to rate improvement in specific behaviors. Step 9: Continued Leadership Coaching, Mentoring and Peer Support A combination of these can be used to enhance development. Step 10: Final Comparison Survey Toward the end of the year, a comparison survey is done to see how the key areas have improved or not. ---

🔄 The Emotional Reset: Reframing the Narrative in Leadership 🧠 Neuroscience Insight: Have you ever received tough feedback and immediately felt defensive? That’s your brain’s default mode network (DMN) at work—jumping to worst-case assumptions and emotional hijacking. But here’s the truth: Reframing engages the prefrontal cortex, shifting us from reaction to rational problem-solving. 📖 A Quick Story: A leader I coached received harsh public feedback from an executive during a meeting. Their initial reaction? “They don’t respect my work—I need to push back!” Frustration took over, and their body language showed it. ✅ The Shift: A Simple Emotional Reset Before reacting, they asked themselves: 🔹 What’s the bigger picture here? This feedback is about improving outcomes, not a personal attack. 🔹 If I were coaching someone else, what would I tell them? Pause, take notes, and ask clarifying questions. 🔹 What emotion do I want to lead with? Calm curiosity instead of defensiveness. 🔥 The Outcome: Instead of escalating the tension, the leader responded with: 💬 “Thank you for the feedback. I’d love to understand what specific improvements you’d like to see. Can we explore solutions together?” 🚀 CRAVE Leadership in Action: ✔ Respect – For oneself and others, even in challenging moments. ✔ Authenticity – Acknowledging emotions without reacting impulsively. ✔ Empathy – Understanding the perspective behind the feedback. ✨ Your Turn: Next time you’re faced with criticism, try this Emotional Reset. Before reacting, ask yourself these three reframing questions. What’s your go-to strategy for handling tough feedback? Drop a comment below! ⬇️ #DrAmin #CRAVELeadership #NeuroLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutivePresence #EmotionalIntelligence #FeedbackCulture

Most people think all feedback has value, that every critique and comment will shape us into better leaders. But here’s the truth: Not all feedback carries the same weight. This doesn’t mean we disregard challenging input; rather, we learn to discern feedback that aligns with our goals, our values, and our aspirations. When I look back, I wish someone had told me that mastering this art isn’t about absorbing everything—it's about developing a strategic filter. Here's how to start refining that filter: Evaluate the Source: Before weighing feedback, examine the credibility and expertise of the person offering it. Not all perspectives hold equal insight for your journey; focus on those from people who understand your role, goals, and values deeply. Identify Patterns, Not One-Offs: Rather than reacting to one-off comments, identify recurring themes across sources. These patterns are what often reveal real areas for growth and development. Align with Your Goals: Filter advice through your career vision. Not all suggestions are aligned with where you're headed, and discerning what fits ensures you stay on course with purpose. Remember, feedback is only as powerful as our ability to discern its true value. When you master that, you’re no longer just reacting to others—you’re setting a course aligned with your highest potential.

Measuring Success: How Competency-Based Assessments Can Accelerate Your Leadership If it’s you who feels stuck in your career despite putting in the effort. To help you gain measurable progress, one can use competency-based assessments to track skills development over time. 💢Why Competency-Based Assessments Matter: They provide measurable insights into where you stand, which areas you need improvement, and how to create a focused growth plan. This clarity can break through #career stagnation and ensure continuous development. 💡 Key Action Points: ⚜️Take Competency-Based Assessments: Track your skills and performance against defined standards. ⚜️Review Metrics Regularly: Ensure you’re making continuous progress in key areas. ⚜️Act on Feedback: Focus on areas that need development and take actionable steps for growth. 💢Recommended Assessments for Leadership Growth: For leaders looking to transition from Team Leader (TL) to Assistant Manager (AM) roles, here are some assessments that can help: 💥Hogan Leadership Assessment – Measures leadership potential, strengths, and areas for development. 💥Emotional Intelligence (EQ-i 2.0) – Evaluates emotional intelligence, crucial for leadership and collaboration. 💥DISC Personality Assessment – Focuses on behavior and communication styles, helping leaders understand team dynamics and improve collaboration. 💥Gallup CliftonStrengths – Identifies your top strengths and how to leverage them for leadership growth. 💥360-Degree Feedback Assessment – A holistic approach that gathers feedback from peers, managers, and subordinates to give you a well-rounded view of your leadership abilities. By using these tools, leaders can see where they excel and where they need development, providing a clear path toward promotion and career growth. Start tracking your progress with these competency-based assessments and unlock your full potential. #CompetencyAssessment #LeadershipGrowth #CareerDevelopment #LeadershipSkills

Notion 1 – 70% of the variability in engagement is caused by the direct superior (Gallup says so). Notion 2 - The thorniest topics subordinates find in one-on-one meetings with their managers is addressing performance or behavioral issues of their superiors (you and I say so). 🙋♂️🙋♀️ Hands up who finds this situation all too familiar: 𝙔𝙤𝙪’𝙫𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙚𝙭𝙖𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙗𝙤𝙨𝙨’𝙨 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙗𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙘𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙦𝙪𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 & 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙩 𝙤𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙗𝙤𝙣𝙪𝙨. The failure to address upward feedback, especially regarding superiors’ performance, carries significant organizational consequences. ❌ As observed across various social media platforms, junior employees often quit, formally or quietly, out of frustration due to their inability to confront incompetent bosses. ❌ That lack of due upward feedback inadvertently inhibits their boss’s performance since upward feedback is a crucial source of information for managers to enhance their own performance. A practical organizational solution to facilitate upward feedback from employees to their managers is formalizing opportunities to comment on superiors’ work or performance. ✅ Organizations might consider implementing 360-degree feedback, which allows everyone to share insights not only about their subordinates but also about peers & superiors. ✅ Leaders soliciting input, particularly upward feedback, is a recognized method to strengthen psychological safety - a shared belief within a team that voicing ideas, concerns, & mistakes won’t result in negative consequences. Where should a people-first leader start to find good answers to “What’s it like to be led by me?” Ask these questions in a meeting with your team: 1️⃣ “Which A-players are close to quitting?” 2️⃣ “What toxic behaviors do I accidentally reward?” 3️⃣ “Where do my decisions create unnecessary work?” 4️⃣ “What broken promises are breaking trust?” 5️⃣ “What team burnout signs am I missing?” 6️⃣ “Where do good ideas get sidelined in our team?” That leader might not even want to call this feedback, but data collection. Now, the above is a hierarchical top-down approach. The leader has to take the first step. Let's change the script: What if you asked AND answered those same questions bottom-up in your next 360-meeting? What's the worst that could happen? What's the best that could happen? Worth a try? 🍯

Reviewing a leader's 360 feedback last week, he was clearly scoring well on trust and influence. He explained that he'd worked hard to build relationships with key senior stakeholders in a crisis project he was leading. Yet one stakeholder didn't feel that way. They'd shared he needed to work harder to form connections and not push ahead without consensus. My client could have ignored the 'outlier' feedback, but he chose to reflect that whilst his respectful, straight-forward, objective-oriented approach was overwhelmingly appreciated, he could consciously modify his style with some people - and further strengthen his effectiveness. As a leader, you are in a position of influence, which is a huge gift. And as a leader, you'll be in situations that continue to stretch and challenge you - and in moments of stress or high stakes, maybe this is a helpful reframe: leadership - the gift that keeps on giving. How you handle that gift is your decision. Hopefully, in that moment, you combine your thinking and feeling skills to make a smart decision. What does this person need right now? What does this situation need right now? How can you use your diverse skills, traits and values to (co)create a way forward? #leadership #eq #influence

"I need to give you some feedback." Have you noticed how those words can instantly create tension in a room? 🤔 I was recently working with a leadership team struggling with performance conversations. The challenge wasn't the content of the feedback, but the power dynamic at play. We've all been there - when someone with formal authority sits down to "provide feedback," it often creates an automatic imbalance. The conversation becomes one-way rather than collaborative. This is where understanding the balance between advocacy (stating your position) and inquiry (exploring others' perspectives) becomes crucial: High advocacy + Low inquiry = "Here's what you need to improve" with little curiosity about context or challenges. 👉 The person receiving feedback feels judged rather than supported. High advocacy + High inquiry = "Here's what I've observed, and I'm genuinely interested in understanding your perspective." 👉 This creates psychological safety and joint problem-solving. At Fractional Insights, we use this matrix to help leaders recognize their default patterns in performance conversations. Most of us naturally lean toward either advocating our viewpoint OR asking questions - rarely both in balance. When leaders balance sharing their expertise with genuine curiosity, teams experience higher psychological safety and better performance outcomes. What's your natural tendency in feedback conversations? Do you lead with questions or statements? And what small shift might help you create more balanced dialogue? #LeadershipDevelopment #FeedbackCulture #PsychologicalSafety #FractionalInsights

Early in my career as a Corporate Auditor at Honeywell, we ended each audit with a feedback session. During one of these sessions, my lead, Tom, shared something that stayed with me for the rest of my career. He told me, “Your team and clients love working with you. But I see your pleaser tendencies—and that could limit your impact as a leader.” It was eye-opening. Up until that moment, I hadn’t realized how my desire to please might be holding me back. That moment planted a seed that grew into deeper self-awareness and personal growth over the years. As leaders, we know feedback matters. But how often do we truly seek it out—and receive it in a way that maximizes its value? Yes, feedback can be hard. It triggers emotion. But it can also be the key to real growth. Here are a few things I’ve learned about RECEIVING FEEDBACK: 🔥 Know your triggers and be prepared to manage them. You might feel emotion in the moment, but you get to choose how to respond and move forward. 📫 Separate the message from the messenger. Recognize you likely have feelings about the giver so separate these feelings from the content of the message. ⁉️ Evaluate the feedback. Is it valid? Is it useful? Get curious and ask follow-up questions to understand where it’s coming from and where it’s going. 📖 Make feedback a habit. Create a plan to periodically check in with a few others. Be simple and specific. For example: “What’s one thing you see me doing that might be holding me back?” I’d love to hear from you—was there a piece of feedback that shaped your career? What did you learn from it? #leadershipcoaching #feedback #receivingfeedback #selfawareness #personalgrowth

Conversations of consequence are substantive conversations that allow us to directly address issues, resolve problems, and deliver great results. If we're not able to have these “conversations" at work, it’s likely that we aren't communicating effectively as an organization and limiting our ability to accomplish big things. Perhaps more importantly, when we don't have conversations of consequence, feedback is not getting to the right people at the right time. Feedback (information, data, stories) that are critical to making decisions and understanding how the business is performing in the moment. To help us all, the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) has created an easy to understand and use model for people within organizations to have these kinds of conversations. The "Situation, Behavior, Impact" (SBI) model is a framework designed for people on your team to provide clear and actionable feedback. It helps individuals give feedback in a way that is specific, objective, and focused on observable behaviors rather than personal attributes. The model is particularly effective in professional settings, where clear communication and constructive feedback are crucial for personal and organizational growth. Here's a breakdown of each component of the SBI feedback model: Situation (S): Start by describing the specific situation where the behavior happened. This provides context and helps the recipient understand when and where the behavior took place." Example: "During our team meeting this morning..." Behavior (B): Describe the person's actions clearly and objectively, focusing on what they did without making judgments or assumptions. Example: "...when you interrupted me while I was speaking..." Impact (I): Explain the effects of the person's behavior on others or the situation. This helps them understand the consequences of their actions and how it made you feel. Example: "...it made me feel like my contributions were not valued, and disrupted the flow of the discussion." The SBI feedback model is effective because it makes the feedback clear, specific, and actionable. It avoids generalizations or personal attacks, focusing on observable actions and their consequences. Using this model, feedback is delivered in a non-confrontational way, helping individuals clearly see how their behavior impacts others. It's especially useful for those looking to improve, as the feedback is specific, constructive, and directly linked to real situations. This model can be used in many situations; performance reviews, in cases of resolving conflict, and daily communication. It can help to strengthen relationships and support personal and professional growth. Now that you have the SBI framework, try it out. It should bring a new level of confidence to those "conversations of consequence" we need to be having. #leadership #situationbehaviorimpact #CCL #execution

As an EY Partner, I gave feedback to thousands. Master the art of feedback - skyrocket your leadership: Bad feedback creates confusion. Good feedback sparks growth. Use the CSS (Clear, Specific, Supportive) framework to make your feedback land without friction. No more awkward silences or sugarcoating disasters: 1. Give positive feedback that actually feels valuable. ❌ Don’t say: “Great job!” ✅ Instead say: “Hey [Name], I really liked how you [specific action]. It made a real impact on [outcome]. Keep doing this—it’s a game-changer.” Why it matters: → Reinforces what actually works 2 Address underperformance without demotivating. ❌ Don’t say: “You need to improve.” ✅ Instead say: “I appreciate your effort on [project]. One area to refine is [specific issue]. A great way to improve would be [solution or resource]. Let’s check in next [timeframe] to see how it’s going.” Why it works: → Pinpoints the issue without personal criticism 3. Redirect someone without crushing their confidence. ❌ Don’t say: “This isn’t what I wanted.” ✅ Instead say: “I see where you were going with [work]. One way to make it even stronger is [specific suggestion]. What do you think about this approach?” Why it works: → Keeps feedback constructive, not critical 4. Push back on an idea (without sounding like a jerk). ❌ Don’t say: “I don’t think this will work.” ✅ Instead say: “I see the thinking behind [idea]. One challenge I foresee is [issue]. Have you considered [alternative approach]? Let’s explore what works best.” Why it works: → Keeps it a discussion, not a shutdown 5. Handle conflict without escalating it. ❌ Don’t say: “You’re wrong.” ✅ Instead say: “I see it differently—here’s why. Can we walk through both perspectives and find common ground?” Why it works: → Creates space for solutions, not arguments 6. Help someone level up their leadership. ❌ Don’t say: “You need to be more of a leader.” ✅ Instead say: “I see a lot of leadership potential in you. One way to step up is by [specific behavior]. I’d love to support you in growing here—what do you think?” Why it works: → Focuses on potential, not deficits 7. Coach someone who is struggling. ❌ Don’t say: “You need to step up.” ✅ Instead say: “I’ve noticed [specific challenge]. What’s getting in the way? Let’s find a way to make this easier for you.” Why it works: → Focuses on support, not blame 8. Give feedback to a peer without sounding like a boss. ❌ Don’t say: “You should have done it this way.” ✅ Instead say: “I had a thought—what if we tried [alternative]? I think it could help with [goal]. What do you think?” Why it works: → Encourages shared ownership of improvement 9. Close feedback on a high note. ❌ Don’t say: “Just fix it.” ✅ Instead say: “I appreciate the work you put in. With these adjustments, I know it’ll be even better. Looking forward to seeing how it evolves!” Why it works: → Ends on a motivating note — ♻️ Repost it to help others grow.