Leadership, Feedback & Followership

Contested narratives, internecine conflict, economic volatility and political uncertainty are urgent issues from 2023 that have followed us into 2024. The outlook for the year ahead is nuanced and potentially very challenging. In 2024 and in the next few years, leadership at all levels will be sorely tested as they struggle to address the myriad political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental and ethical wicked problems we face as a global family. A pertinent question for us all is whether our leaders have the ability, courage and commitment to  lead us through the crucibles ahead. Another pertinent question is how as followers provide support to our leaders particularly in situations in which the consequences of doing the wrong things are dire.  These questions to my mind frame the key issue with particular reference to organisational leadership, I want to address in this blog. For it is abundantly clear that leadership is essential at all levels of human social existence, however what is equally essential but much less vaunted is followership. This is notwithstanding the obvious critical role followership plays in the success of any given collective endeavour. Indeed, as followership usually involves the active support and engagement with leadership on accomplishing shared goals, then the quality of  the relationship between leaders and followers is critically important. For followers to be effective in supporting the achieving of worthwhile goals  they should be able to challenge leadership thinking, offer and receive feedback and actively contribute to the decisions made. Predicated on the ‘social constructivist’ perspective of leadership, it is essentially the interaction between leaders and followers over time that produces leadership, rather than it being something embodied in individual leaders or something owned by them. Against the background set out above it is my contention that reciprocally - “welcome, relevant, appropriate  and purposive feedback”-  should be a cardinal feature of the interactions between leaders and followers. Furthermore I would further contend that if effective feedback is not embedded in the lived reality of leader-follower interactions, then organisations don't thrive and may barely survive through market challenges. However, giving and receiving effective  feedback is not easy and and requires intentional development and refining as context dictates. A recent review of feedback literature provided the following interesting facts.

• Employees who receive regular feedback from their managers are 3.5 times more likely to be engaged in the work
• 69% of employees said they would work harder is their efforts were better recognised and appreciated
• 65% of employees want more feedback than they are currently getting.
• Only 58% of managers think they give enough feedback.

To provide support to to leaders and managers that requires support in how to improve the quality and impact of their performance feedback, I have developed a feedback model called the WRAP model. I am interested in receiving feedback on how useful the model is and as such have designed an interactive mini-course with scenario based learning  exercises. In the spirit of festive cheer, I will give free access to the course for the first 2 weeks of the year. All I ask for is constructive feedback on the design and impact of the course.

Happy 2024 and here's to successfully surmounting our current challenges.

https://timojo.podia.com/wrap-model-mini-course