You're struggling to lead your team effectively. How can you use feedback to improve?

1 The benefits of feedback

Feedback is essential for learning and improvement. It helps you and your team members to identify your strengths and areas for development, to align your expectations and goals, and to celebrate your achievements and recognize your efforts. Feedback can also foster trust, respect, and engagement among your team members, as well as with your clients and stakeholders. By giving and receiving feedback regularly, you can create a culture of continuous improvement and innovation in your mobile communications team.

2 The challenges of feedback

Feedback can be difficult to give and receive, and there are many common challenges associated with it. These include offering feedback that is too vague, irrelevant, or negative, which can be demotivating or insulting. Receiving feedback that is harsh, unfair, or inaccurate can damage self-esteem. Additionally, avoiding feedback due to fear of hurting someone's feelings or admitting mistakes, rejecting feedback because it is not agreed with, and ignoring feedback due to its perceived insignificance are all potential pitfalls. If these challenges are not addressed, they can have a negative impact on leadership effectiveness and team performance. To overcome these issues, it is necessary to develop feedback skills and the right mindset.

3 The skills of feedback

Feedback skills are essential for giving and receiving feedback effectively. To prepare feedback, you should consider the purpose, timing, and context of the feedback, and gather data and examples to support your feedback. When delivering feedback, use clear, specific, and respectful language and focus on the behavior and the impact. It's also important to listen to feedback attentively, ask questions to understand it fully, and respond constructively by expressing your feelings or disagreements. And finally, act on the feedback by setting goals and taking actions to improve your performance or behavior.

4 The mindset of feedback

Having a positive feedback mindset is essential for giving and receiving feedback. It helps to overcome fears, biases, or defensiveness, and to view feedback as a learning opportunity. This includes seeking feedback from different sources, such as team members, clients, or mentors. When giving feedback, be generous and sincere while being supportive, honest, and helpful. Appreciate the benefits of feedback and recognize the efforts of the feedback giver. Finally, learn from the feedback by reflecting on it and applying it to your practice and performance.

5 The feedback cycle

Feedback is not a one-time event, but a continuous process that involves giving, receiving, and acting on feedback. The feedback cycle is a model that illustrates the steps and stages of feedback, and how they are connected and repeated. This cycle consists of four phases: planning, reviewing, acting, and evaluating. When planning, you should prepare and deliver the feedback or seek and receive it depending on your role as the giver or receiver. During the review phase, you should listen to or check the feedback depending on your role. The act phase involves setting goals and taking actions to improve performance or behavior based on the feedback. Lastly, in the evaluate phase you should assess the results of your actions or provide further feedback depending on your role. By following this cycle, you can ensure that your feedback is effective, meaningful, and actionable so that you can achieve desired outcomes and improve mobile communications skills.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?