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Effective leadership is essential for the success of any organization. However, making critical decisions as a leader can be a challenging and complex task. This is where team feedback and collaboration come into play. By working together and leveraging the diverse perspectives of team members, leaders can make better-informed decisions that are more likely to be successful.
Below, Forbes Human Resources Council members discuss ways team feedback and collaboration can help leaders make better decisions and achieve their organizational goals.
1. Promotes The Strengths Of Team Members
Good leaders encourage feedback, both positive and negative, and they learn from that. By encouraging my team to share honest feedback, I’ve had an opportunity to grow personally and recognize the individual strengths of the team members that I might have otherwise overlooked. Creating a collaborative environment has encouraged the sharing of ideas and feedback, leading to business and personal growth. - Hazel Kassu, Sudduth Search
2. Guides The Team To Find Their Way
I used to try too hard to be the smartest voice in the room. The feedback helped me to realize that leadership is not about getting my way, but about helping the team to find their way. Great decisions come from a shared pool of knowledge, so ensuring that everyone's voice is truly heard and that active debates are encouraged and seen as constructive is key to expanding that pool of knowledge. - Paul Whitney, Sysdig
3. Feedback Leads To More Informed Decisions
Experience has taught me that informed decisions produce the best results, so the more team feedback you have, the better. Great leaders recognize they're supposed to deliver the best results—having all of the answers is a team event. In the past, whether through surveys or socialization, I've leveraged my team's expertise and diverse perspectives to make better (informed) decisions, together. - Dr. Timothy J. Giardino, BMC Software
4. Discovers Employees' Communication Preferences
I've learned that staff in meetings (especially junior ones) will sometimes tell you things one-on-one that they won't say in group settings. Actionable insights have come from staying in one-on-one touch with colleagues that I don't normally speak with privately. These can range from learning that someone was communicating unprofessionally to proposing an idea that transforms the client management process. - Eric Friedman, eSkill
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5. Creates An Effective And Attentive Leader
I use employee feedback and employee-generated ideas to inform my leadership decision. This has enabled me to be a more attentive and impactful people leader because I am delivering on what truly matters most to our employees. Because of feedback and collaboration, my team and I are addressing the areas with the highest return on employee engagement, satisfaction and retention. - Mary Ainsworth, Medallia
6. Identifies Blind Spots
By involving team members in the decision-making process, I gain diverse views, identify any blind spots and ensure that the final decision is informed by a range of expertise and experience. It's not just about making better decisions. The act of soliciting feedback and fostering collaboration also builds trust and engagement, leading to more effective communication and a stronger team dynamic. - Neha Mirchandani, BrightPlan
7. Offers An Objective Perspective
When making decisions, I look at the pros and cons and the ripple effect it could have on our business. Soliciting feedback from our team has made my leadership style more objective, more empathetic and more informed. For example, when developing new virtual well-being solutions, I rely on the perspectives of our team to inform strategy and how we deliver support to individuals and employers. - Michael Held, LifeSpeak Inc.
8. Promotes Creative Problem-Solving
Team feedback and collaboration have provided diverse perspectives, uncovered blind spots and promoted creative problem-solving within the teams. Encouraging open communication helps me gain insights into team dynamics and challenges, allowing me to make well-informed decisions supporting individual and group growth while driving trust, employee engagement and strong company culture. - Loren Rosario-Maldonado, Cultura, Inc.
9. Helps To Understand Motives
Feedback and collaboration ensure the appropriate people are armed with data to influence high-impact decisions. Gathering feedback through tools such as surveys adds color, context and sentiment. You uncover why someone takes an action, how they feel and what they want from products, services or a company. This contextual data informs in-depth insights, driving better organizational decisions. - Antoine Andrews, Momentive, the maker of SurveyMonkey
10. Offers A More Informed Perspective
Throughout my career, I have made a point of cultivating a team where each member has deep expertise in their area of focus. Their respective viewpoints help to inform and shape my work. In fact, my initial thoughts often change based on the valuable feedback provided. By working with a diverse group of people who are experts in their field, I’m able to make stronger leadership decisions. - Susan Tohyama, Ceridian
11. Accelerates Productivity Among Employees
Adopting an inclusive mindset and incorporating diverse perspectives in the decision-making process helps foster stronger teams, leading to better outcomes. This also helps accelerate productivity and better-quality work, as employees feel more involved and accountable. Moreover, collaboration drives better decisions by leveraging varied strengths, resulting in enhanced creativity. - Kshitij Jain, Joveo
12. Algins Team Members With Goals
Leadership teams cannot operate in a bubble and expect employees to perform. By building meaningful conversations, feedback and collaboration into company culture, not only are teams more likely to stay aligned to top company objectives, they’re more likely to accomplish them. This creates visibility and trust across the entire organization. Without that, decisions at the top become ineffective. - Jamie Aitken, Betterworks
13. Improves Skills And Working Relationships
Collaboration and feedback have enabled me to gain diverse perspectives, drive innovative solutions and improve my skill set. Most importantly, it aided in building trust, loyalty and improved working relationships. Additionally, it’s helped in identifying and filling skill gaps on the team, cultivating a culture of accountability and fostering a sense of ownership among my team members. - Liz Corey, Velosio
14. Provides Shared Ownership To Employees
Feedback and collaboration are key to any successful decision. Think about decisions made in a vacuum and compare them to those made through informed advice and team collaboration. The leader owns the decision made in a vacuum, versus collaborative decisions, where the team was consulted. That shared ownership will see people do what it takes to ensure the plan succeeds. - Gordon Pelosse, CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association
15. Giving Employees A Voice Yields Great Insight
I have learned that through an opinion and suggestion box, we get many ideas from current employees concerning safety issues, new updates we can make and great insight on how to make them happier on the job. Their opinions matter, so this suggestion box works wonders. If you check it each week and give the option to the employees to remain anonymous, it is great. - Melissa Bolton, Precision Walls Inc.
16. Encourages 'Out-Of-The-Box' Thinking
Employee feedback and collaboration are crucial during this highly polarized period in U.S. history. Creating a committee consisting of multi-generational employees, who can give feedback and collaborate on items such as benefits and policies, usually results in "out-of-box" thinking and employee buy-in. - Patricia Sharkey, Sharkey HR Consulting, LLC
17. Fosters Different Perspectives To Help Make Decisions
I encourage organizations to learn the individual strengths of each team member and utilize this when decisions need to be made. Everyone in your group will come with a different set of strengths, and getting feedback from people with different perspectives will lead to more well-thought-out decisions. - Lisa Shuster, iHire
18. Increases Adoption Rates And Engagement
My company has a flat management structure specifically designed to include input from the people most impacted by leadership decisions. We've found that it leads to faster adoption, higher engagement rates and a stronger culture of collaboration and ownership. - Patrick Donegan, SEI
19. Holds Leaders Accountable
It's imperative to provide team feedback and collaboration. Our organization meets weekly with two levels of leadership, both executive and senior, and our performance trackers are reviewed in these meetings. When you provide this type of stage, leaders are held accountable, which helps drive performance and growth. Because of this method, our business has grown 968% in the last 10 years! - Ryan Tofte, BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy, A Carelon Company, Elevance Health
20. Empowers Leaders And Teams To Reflect On Decisions Made
After every project, my team and I look at what we did well, what we needed to change and what we can enhance. This feedback and collaboration have allowed me to make immediate decisions that positively impact the output, so we gained better productivity. More than that, it has empowered my team in a major way about their own greatness and also created a healthy culture of openness and belonging. - Tiersa Smith-Hall, Impactful Imprints, Training & Consulting
