Make feedback flow in both directions

Give timely, specific feedback — and ask for it on your own management.

Why it works

The recurring, trusted setting is ideal for feedback because it’s frequent enough to be timely and private enough to be candid. Crucially, asking for feedback on yourself models that candor is safe and reciprocal, lowering the power gradient so the report believes your invitation to be honest is real.

How to do it

1. Deliver feedback specifically and close to the event, not saved up for review season.
2. Ask explicitly what you could do better as their manager — and act on something you hear.
3. Receive their feedback without defensiveness, so they’ll risk it again.

Evidence

Timely, specific feedback improves performance in goal-setting research; seeking feedback and responding non-defensively builds the psychological safety that makes upward feedback possible. (observational)

Feedback can backfire when it threatens the self or is purely evaluative; specific, behavior-focused, frequent feedback is the safer form.

Sources

• Locke & Latham, goal-setting and feedback; Edmondson on leader behavior and psychological safety

Common mistake

Only ever giving feedback downward and never asking for it — which keeps the gradient steep and your own blind spots invisible.