Openness to Feedback

How open is your team to feedback?

I’ve been completing a Sports Psychology course for the last few months, and the facilitator was talking about the importance of athletes being ‘open’ to coaching.  It got me thinking about leaders and their teams in the workplace.

Openness isn’t something leaders can demand. It’s something we help build.

When your team members feel safe enough to be open to your feedback, they’re better able to learn, grow and improve their performance—without taking feedback personally.

In the course, the facilitator outlined four core components related to increasing our own openness:

1. Self-awareness: Understanding our own reactions, emotions and patterns.

2. Working with others: Being willing to hear different perspectives.

3. Support seeking: Feeling safe enough to ask for help and feedback.

4. Learning: Seeing feedback as an opportunity to grow rather than a threat.

How can leaders increase the openness of their team members?

I believe there’s another important ingredient when it comes to openness to feedback: your relationships with your team members.

When there is trust, your team members are more likely to believe that you understand them and have their best interests at heart. In the Feedback Fitness Framework, this starts before the feedback itself—with conversations that build trust, clarify expectations and create psychological safety.

As a leader, consider:

• How curious are you about your team members?

• Do you take the time to understand them as an individual?

• Are you consistently available?

• Do you follow through on what you say you will do?

You can’t force someone to be open to feedback. But you can create the conditions that make openness more likely.

Doing that will help your team move from feedback fear to Feedback Fitness.