How feedback can improve leadership

After discussing Svea's new haircut and finding out if Mattias is ever going to have long hair again, the two of them are talking about today's topic: collecting feedback.

Constructive feedback is a must

Firstly, Mattias explains how important an open feedback culture is at his company. At iGoMoon they say: "Reach for the moon with an open heart" and that is an important part of that. You need to have an open heart in order to accept feedback and to be willing to grow better. Also, iGoMoon's first core value "be brave" is connected to the open feedback culture. People need to be brave to receive feedback but also when giving feedback to others.

Mattias introduces two different ways of how he ensures that everyone at his company has the chance to offer criticism. The first way is the monthly survey he is sending out to his team and he has been using it for about four years. The tool he is using to help collect the data, asks everyone at iGoMoon a set of questions. These questions are divided into different categories such as:

- Alignment
- Relationship with peers
- Satisfaction
- Feedback
- Happiness
- Ambassadorship
- Relationship with manager
- Personal growth
- Wellness

For this specific collection of feedback, Mattias sees the potential to use it in a more efficient way in order to improve. Before the Corona outbreak, there was an office manager who would go through each month's survey results and who would make sure that significant changes would be discussed within the team. Since that role is no longer occupied, no one has been taken care of that part anymore - which also reflects in the participation rate of the survey, which has dropped to 29%.

360-degree feedback

Something else Mattias has done to collect feedback from his team was a 360-degree leadership survey about 1,5 years ago. In this survey, he, his employees, and his colleagues and partners had the chance to rate his leadership. The survey was also divided into different categories with specific questions which the participants could answer with the help of a scale from 0 to 5. After the evaluation of everyone's feedback, Mattias received the results which helped him understand where everyone saw his strengths and weaknesses.

The categories with the lowest score were: "speaking in front of people and presenting" (3,8/), "entrepreneurial thinking" (3,9/5) and "planning and organizing" (3,6/5).

Mattias achieved the highest score in "cultural sensitivity" (4,6/5), "developing others" (4,6/5), and "handling of stress" (4,6/5).

The most valuable part of this 360-degree review was however the comments he received. Everyone who took the survey was not only asked to rate Mattias in different categories but also to leave constructive criticism. This is also one of the main reasons why he is planning on starting to implement this big survey more frequently, like once a year.

💡 EPISODE TAKE AWAY
Stay open for feedback.

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