Informal feedback is diminishing in the new world of work. Those brief moments at the end of the meeting where your boss says, “Great job steering that meeting,” are rare in virtual or hybrid settings. Similarly, impromptu moments of appreciation during a coffee break or a casual chat with colleagues in the hallway are less frequent. That makes actively seeking feedback more crucial than ever for career growth and strengthening your personal brand.
Feedback Is Essential For Career Growth
Feedback helps you:
Validate self-perceptions. Understanding how others perceive you is crucial. Feedback provides insights that can either reaffirm your self-perceptions or help refine them, ensuring alignment between how you see YOU and others’ impressions.
Reinforce strengths. External feedback helps you reinforce the strengths you’ve identified through assessments like Clifton Strengths or DISC. Self-assessment results are valuable, but external input can solidify your understanding and provide a more accurate reflection.
Identify blind spots. 70% of people are unaware of blind spots, according to research by Tasha Eurich. Feedback is essential for uncovering these opportunities for improvement that might otherwise remain hidden.
Reconnect with important people. The people you reach out to are important to you. By asking them for feedback, you’re saying, “What you think matters to me.” It’s a meaningful way to connect with people and strengthen ties.
Get bragging material. Gathering quotes and stories from feedback can be a goldmine for performance evaluations and job interviews. For instance, “I recently received feedback from peers and managers that highlights my creativity, which I believe is a valuable asset to the team.”
Show people you care about feedback. Leaders actively seek feedback because they value continuous improvement. By openly welcoming feedback, you signal to others that you are committed to personal and professional growth.
Seek Feedback From The Right People
Of course, you want to get feedback from those whose input you can rely on:
Choose people who know you well. Select respondents who have experienced you, so their feedback is credible and actionable.
Get a true 360-degree view. Collect feedback from people who interact with you in various roles—friends, family, colleagues, managers, employees, networking contacts, etc. This helps you identify personal brand attributes that are consistent across different relationships.
Ensure participant anonymity. If your respondents don’t think their feedback is anonymous, they’ll be less likely to tell you exactly what they think. Confidentiality delivers candor.
Make it easy and quick. Respect the busy schedules of your feedback providers by using a user-friendly survey tool.
Take Action On The Feedback You Receive
Merely receiving feedback isn’t enough. You must turn learning into action so you can achieve results:
Pat yourself on the back. It can make you feel vulnerable to put yourself out there for candid feedback, so recognize and applaud yourself for taking the risk.
Accentuate the positive. Combat negativity bias by focusing predominantly on the positive feedback you receive. Research suggests that we need five times as much positive input to counteract the impact of negative feedback.
Focus on key themes. Filter feedback, discarding isolated comments that don’t align with recurring themes.
Project yourself into the future. Ask yourself: What do I want to do next? Determine what feedback you received that will help you reach your goal or be valuable to you once you get there. Amplify and highlight these are elements of your brand.
Address Gaps. Identify the critical skills or attributes that are missing from the feedback but essential for reaching your career goals. For example, if people see you as an accomplished doer – always able to make things happen, but you want to manage people in your next role, find ways to demonstrate leadership skills. Create a plan for professional development to build or bolster key skills.
Cultivate A Passion For Feedback
Feedback is a gift, and in our rapidly evolving work environment, seeking feedback is no longer a passive endeavor but a proactive strategy for cultivating self-awareness and elevating your personal brand.
William Arruda is a keynote speaker, co-founder of CareerBlast.TV and creator of the 360Reach Personal Brand Survey that helps you get candid, meaningful feedback from people who know you.
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