So you’ve made some pretty significant gains, but you still can’t reach that next level. Stop your whining. It’s not rocket science. The good news is, you’re not alone. It’s just an inability to communicate sincerely – giving and receiving feedback – not earth shattering stuff here, but critical for your success as a leader nonetheless.
Building Trust Through Feedback
What seems to be the problem? For one thing, it’s difficult for people to give and receive accurate, succinct and actionable feedback that allows people to actually change. What most of us don’t realize is that all this stuff ties together. How so? People follow leaders because they trust them; they believe they’re headed in the right direction. But trust isn’t something that’s earned immediately, and despite kicking and screaming, building trust takes a while. One of the biggest drivers of trust is our openness, our ability to share with people. On a basic level, for people to trust you, they need to know who you are and that you’re consistent. You show them this by giving them regular feedback. Tell them what you like or don’t like and why, and do it repeatedly.
Listening skills
The lack of good ol’ listening skills is responsible for wrecking many a senior executive. By listening skills, I’m talking about real listening. Not sitting down with someone and checking your caller ID or glancing over at your cell phone every time it beeps, burps, chirps or bumps. I’m talking about truly paying attention to people, listening to them, asking reflecting questions, etc. These are the sorts of things that let people know you’re actually engaged. We can always tell when someone is listening to us, but I guess we think we’re smarter than everybody else, because we also think that they won’t know if we’re the ones not listening. Most folks are not that easily fooled.
Too often, when that opportunity presents itself, people back off a bit on giving feedback because they think: “I’m empowering people, so I shouldn’t share those sorts of things.” Wrong. What you’re really doing is keeping one of the most valuable things you have for developing and building trust from your employees– direct feedback on what they’re doing that you like or don’t like. Learn to listen and communicate sincerely. Your folks will reward you for it.
