Digest 9. Hide or Seek: When employees seek feedback or try to stay out of sight
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Organizations that encourage, support, and reward their employees for actively asking for feedback get several benefits in return, such as better task performance and leader-member relationships (Dahling et. Al, 2012). Moreover, as we have seen in our first digest, the promotion of feedback-seeking is an essential ingredient for the creation of a high-quality feedback environment, which in turn can boost employees’ well-being.
Employees can actively seek feedback for multiple reasons. One such motivation is to reduce uncertainty on how one is being evaluated and allow calibration of self-evaluations. Other motives include understanding the relative importance of various goals; achieving a sense of competence and control; having a chance for voice and self-expression.
However, people also worry about the effects of asking for feedback, as it may decrease self-esteem or communicate a negative image to colleagues, for example that of being anxious or insecure. As such, employees may view feedback inquiry as having both benefits and costs, and what influences their decision to seek it or avoid it has been under questioning by researchers.
Who is most likely to be an active feedback-seeker?
Anseel and colleagues’ (2015) comprehensive meta-analysis of feedback-seeking research conducted in the last 30 years brought light to this question. The following characteristics seem associated with feedback-seeking behaviors:
Demographics:
Job and organizational tenure: when moving to a new job or organization, the desire to reduce the uncertainty experienced may lead to seeking more feedback information in order to speed up the adaptation and the learning curve. With increasing tenure in one’s job or organization, feedback seeking tends to decrease.
Age: younger employees perceive lower expectations on them from colleagues and superiors, making it easier to ask for help. On the contrary, older and more experienced employees are likely expected to know how to perform their role; thus, they may fear to be seen as incompetent or unsuited for the job if they often seek feedback.
Individual differences:
Feedback orientation: as we have seen in digest 5, individuals with a high receptivity to feedback tend to respond favorably, to be more open to feedback, and to use it more. As such, they will attach lower costs and less disadvantages to feedback-seeking.
Self-efficacy: this refers to “people's beliefs in their capabilities to produce desired effects by their own actions” (Bandura, 1997, p. vii) . Considering that negative feedback can have potential detrimental impact on the feedback seeker’s self-competence, individuals with lower self-efficacy will probably enact less feedback-seeking behaviors.
Situational characteristics:
Transformational leadership: transformational leaders offer intellectual stimulation and individual consideration by encouraging followers to come up with innovative ideas and implement creative solutions and by demonstrating genuine concern for followers’ needs and feelings, helping them self-actualize. As such, employees will likely feel safer to speak up and ask for feedback from this type of leaders.
Leader-member relationship quality: employees who have a good relationship with managers will likely be more willing to seek feedback as the perceived risks/costs are lower. Indeed, the feedback obtained will most likely be provided in a more sensitive, detailed, and helpful manner (as we have seen in digest 4).
Infographic created by REAL PAL - Characteristics leading to feedback-seeking behaviors
Organizational implications
In light of these findings, how can an organization foster feedback-seeking behaviors in their employees?
Take into account age/tenure differences: It may be relevant to adjust the type of encouragement according to the guiding motives of different age/seniority groups. Moreover, managers may prioritize targeting older/longer-tenured employees for feedback-seeking encouragement. Younger/less experienced employees will need it and will tend to do it anyway for improving their socialization and adaptation. Younger and lower-tenured employees can start a culture shift by role-modeling those behaviors in their colleagues.
Develop interventions to increase self-efficacy: sources of self-efficacy that can be targeted are self-mastery (by widening employees’ access to opportunities to succeed at tasks), role modeling (by encouraging employees to observe role models that will boost motivation and give the power to accept and accomplish challenging tasks), and verbal persuasion (by increasing the occasions of receiving encouragement and praise words from others).
Take into account the feedback orientation of employees: read more on the implications of feedback orientation for organisations in our digest 5.
Focus on leadership development and on training leaders to create good relationships with their collaborators: Because feedback-seeking entails not only advantages but also potential risks, it is essential that employees feel reassured through building a high-quality relationship with their supervisors. This will create the perception that the benefits of feedback seeking (e.g., achieving certain goals, advancing one’s career, developing new skills) outweigh the costs (e.g., losing face, feeling incompetent). Supervisors and organizations can alleviate some of the concerns associated with feedback-seeking in training and through socialization processes.
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Reference: Anseel, F., Beatty, A. S., Shen, W., Lievens, F., & Sackett, P. R. (2015). How Are We Doing After 30 Years? A Meta-Analytic Review of the Antecedents and Outcomes of Feedback-Seeking Behavior. Journal of Management (Vol. 41). https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206313484521