Welcome to The Leadership Audit — a new series from Radiant Catalyst. Every two weeks, we publish one diagnostic question for leaders. Not a quiz. Not a framework. One question worth sitting with, and one action to take this week.
This week’s question:
When did you last ask your team how you’re doing as their manager — and genuinely mean it? |
Not in a performance review. Not in a team meeting where the power dynamic makes honest answers unlikely. In a one-on-one, directly, with real openness to whatever they say.
Most managers answer this question with a version of “I have an open-door policy.” Which is an answer about access, not about invitation. An open door tells people they can come to you if they want to. It doesn’t tell them you’re actively seeking their perspective on your leadership.
The research on feedback loops in management is consistent: leaders who actively and regularly solicit upward feedback develop faster, build higher-trust teams, and retain people longer. The mechanism is not complicated. When you ask genuinely, two things happen. First, you get information you couldn’t get any other way. Second, your team gets evidence that you are serious about growth — not just their growth, but your own.
That evidence matters more than most leaders realize. A manager who models the same willingness to receive feedback that they ask of their team creates a fundamentally different culture than one who doesn’t.
The action this week
In your next 1:1 with each direct report, ask one of these questions, and then sit in the silence long enough for the real answer to surface:
- “What’s one thing I could do differently that would make your work easier or better?”
- “Is there anything about how I lead that sometimes makes things harder for you?”
- “What would you want more of from me? Less of?”
Don’t defend. Don’t explain. Don’t immediately solve what they name. Just listen, reflect on what you heard, and thank them for being honest.
Then, and this is the part most leaders miss, do something visible with what you heard. Even one small change, named explicitly: “You mentioned that our 1:1s feel too focused on projects. I want to try something different this week.” Closing that loop is what turns a feedback conversation into a trust-building one.