Be honest: what do you base your feedback on as a manager?
Picture this: you’re sitting at your desk. The steam from your coffee curls up cheerfully. Performance reviews are coming up. HR is practically sending smoke signals: “Make sure you’re prepared!” You’re feeling motivated. You’ve even got a neat stack of templates open: competency matrix, SMART goals, action plans. All set… right?
A Netflix vibe… with a side of feedback
You’ve just finished a presentation.
Your hands are still sticky with sweat, your mouth is dry, and you’re thinking, “Phew. It’s over. I made it.”
And then someone walks up to you. Smiling. Slightly conspiratorial.
“Can I give you some feedback?”
Feedback Orientation: The Secret Ingredient for Successful Performance Reviews
Feedback is essential in every organization, but the idea of a feedback culture often remains vague and subjectively interpreted. Instead of focusing only on culture, it can be more practical to think in terms of creating a feedback environment. This approach provides concrete tools for how feedback is given and received, and it’s strongly linked to positive outcomes like increased engagement, greater creativity, and reduced symptoms of burnout.
How to Develop an Effective Feedback Environment: 7 ‘buttons’ to Adjust
Feedback is essential within any organization, yet the concept of a feedback culture is often vague and subjectively interpreted. Instead of focusing solely on culture, it may be more practical to look at the creation of a “feedback environment.” This approach provides concrete guidelines for how feedback is given and received, and is strongly linked to various positive outcomes such as increased engagement, creativity, and reduced burnout symptoms.
When does feedback truly have the desired impact?
In a previous blog post, we delved deeper into the predictors of psychological safety at the individual level. We mainly discussed which personal characteristics impact your sense of psychological safety, but also covered task characteristics and social aspects of your job. In this blog post, we’re taking it up a level: the team level. Psychological safety is, by nature, a concept at the team level. We know that it can be felt individually, but too much of a discrepancy in perceived psychological safety between team members is not ideal. Additionally, as an organization, you can do a lot to help, but there can be significant differences between teams within the same organization. So, the focus is on the team level. To keep things clear, we’d like to discuss three key points: how team characteristics can support psychological safety, which social interactions are relevant, and the importance of good leadership behavior.
The Journey Toward Psychological Safety: Part 3 | The Role of Organizational Culture
In a previous blog post, we took a deeper dive into the predictors of psychological safety at the individual level. We primarily discussed which personal traits impact your sense of psychological safety, as well as job characteristics and social aspects of your role. In this blog post, we move one level up: the team level. Psychological safety is, by its nature, a concept that thrives at the team level. While it can certainly be experienced individually, too much variation in psychological safety between team members is not beneficial.
Additionally, while organizations can do a lot to support psychological safety, there are often major differences between teams within the same organization. That’s why it’s important to focus on the team level. To keep things clear, we aim to discuss three key elements: how team characteristics contribute to psychological safety, which social interactions are relevant, and the importance of effective leadership behavior.
The Journey to Psychological Safety: Part 2 | The Importance of Teams and Leadership
In een vorig blogbericht zijn we dieper ingegaan op de voorspellers van psychologische veiligheid op individueel niveau. We spraken hier voornamelijk over welke kenmerken die te maken hebben met je persoon een impact hebben op je ervaren psychologische veiligheid, maar ook over taakkenmerken en sociale aspecten van je job. In deze blogpost gaan we een niveau hoger: het teamniveau. Psychologische veiligheid is bij uitstek een concept op teamniveau. We weten dat je dit ook individueel kan voelen, maar dat ook te veel verschil in ervaren psychologische veiligheid tussen teamleden niet goed is. Daarnaast kan je als organisatie veel doen om te helpen, maar er is in één organisatie ook veel verschil tussen de teams. Focus op het teamniveau dus. Om het overzichtelijk te houden willen we graag drie zaken bespreken: hoe teamkenmerken kunnen helpen bij psychologische veiligheid, welke sociale interacties relevant zijn en het belang van goed leiderschapsgedrag.
The Journey to Psychological Safety: Part 1 | On a Personal Level
Experiencing psychological safety means feeling secure enough to take interpersonal risks—like giving feedback, expressing your opinion, engaging in conflict, or admitting mistakes. Feeling this kind of safety has benefits on many levels. We know that employees and teams who feel psychologically safe:
Leadership Development: How to Get Started?
Leaders are crucial for the performance and well-being of their teams and employees. This connection is consistently found in both science and practice. However, it turns out that it’s not so simple to help these leaders grow in their roles. So, how should you approach this?
Beneath the Iceberg of Leadership | What Predicts Effective Leadership Behavior?
A lot has already been written about leadership, leaders, and managers.
One of the central questions is: what makes one leader effective, while another falls short? This topic is frequently explored in academic circles as well. Are good leaders born or made? What are the key traits of an effective leader? Which leadership skills can we develop through learning? And the list goes on.
In this piece, we’d like to dig a little deeper into what actually predicts effective leadership behavior.