Introduction
The history of human civilization proves that interaction is critical for the successful production of products, content, and services. In the professional field, effective communication, cooperation, and collaboration between individuals, teams, groups, and entities is ensured through management. If an organization has a vibrant feedback culture, its human resource (HR) management is considered efficient. This paper explores the manager as a feedback promoter in the work environment.
Manager’s Roles in Designing and Implementing a Feedback-Rich Culture
Manager as a Listener
One of the roles that creating a feedback-rich culture requires the manager to adapt is the listener or recipient. In this role, the manager, as an actor in the conversation with a subordinate or a person of a higher or equal position, performs two functions: feedback elicitation and interpretation. Application of the four skills enables one to be a good listener and interpreter. These are “listening, asserting, managing the process, and solving the problem” (Quach et al., 2020, p. 1553). These skills are more of a personal than professional nature; most people in the world possess these. In creating a feedback-rich culture, the manager learns more about and masters these.
Challenges
Two internal and external barriers prevent a manager from becoming a good listener and creating a feedback-rich workplace culture. The inner one is the trigger reactions that subconsciously occur in the manager’s mind when they receive and accept information from the feedback giver. According to Quach et al. (2020), there are “truth triggers, relationship triggers, and identity triggers” (p. 1553). These undermine and sabotage listening and interpreting, preventing the manager from applying the four skills mentioned above appropriately and adequately. As a result, the one who should provide guidance responds inadequately and ineffectively.
An external barrier is a work environment that, due to its physical design or psychological climate, prevents employees from giving feedback. Experts say that “concerns about job security and awkwardness in the workplace may make it difficult to elicit honest feedback from direct reports” (Quach et al., 2020, p. 1552). It can be said that both obstacles have a negative impact of the same magnitude in that they prevent the manager or preceptor from even starting the process of establishing an influential feedback culture in an organization.
Solutions
Fortunately, experts in the management profession have developed effective psychological and organizational techniques to overcome both types of barriers. The impact of trigger responses on the perception of one can be mitigated and minimized by exploring and applying learning responses (Quach et al., 2020). Learning responses as a methodology are based on a personality-based approach, regular introspection and self-reflection, honest dialogue, and the virtue of sincerity.
There are also several practical ways to engage employees in the feedback process. One effective psychological technique is to embrace oneself as a listener, fully committing to this role and actively demonstrating this in dialogue. As Quach et al. (2020) argue, “It is imperative to demonstrate a genuine interest in listening to the feedback to elicit information” (p. 1552). Adopting the growth mindset concept as a perspective of perceiving colleagues as individuals with endless resources for professional development is another practical measure (Quach et al., 2020). It provides new friendlier, and more appropriate options for delivering critical information and guidance in dialogues and innovative viewpoints in employee development. When optimizing the physical work environment for comfortable feedback giving and receiving, one should think about the image of a private dialogue between the two to organize the space effectively (Quach et al., 2020). Such a setting inspires people to share about coworkers and organizational elements, mechanisms, and processes that concern them more sincerely and actively.
Manager as a Guidance Provider
The second critical role or function a manager must assume to initiate and complete creating a feedback-rich culture is the guidance provided. The manager is obliged not only to give his assessment and reaction regarding the concern or initiative of the employee but also to instruct and train them from a more expert viewpoint. While they do so, they must ensure that the immediate feedback response is appropriate to the organizational model and culture and is easily incorporated into a future action plan. A manager’s other responsibility as a guidance provider is the design of narrowly targeted and significant organizational changes (Quach et al., 2020). Accumulated feedback is best addressed when approached comprehensively. As one can see, being an instruction giver is a more demanding professional task.
Challenges
As with the role of feedback recipient, a person in a managerial position can face external and internal obstacles when trying to give their professional expertise to feedback from a coworker. Poor articulation and an inability to word one’s ideas appropriately to the context and the personalities of the other human beings involved in the dialogue undermine the manager’s effort to deliver information verbally (Horstman, 2016). Not knowing when and how to use facial expressions and body language can also create mutual cognitive problems of varying severity. A manager’s poor understanding of how to lead and navigate a conversion and underdeveloped charisma are significant psychological barriers.
Conceptually, it is feedback, too, when a manager provides guidance or instructions to a coworker. Like any other human reaction, it can have a positive connotation, a negative connotation, or both (Horstman, 2016). Most people are usually happy to receive positive and mixed feedback; they actively take the knowledge from it and incorporate it into their behavior. However, a significant proportion of people out there resist accepting an instructive response from a manager, especially if it is a negative one (Horstman, 2016). Overcoming this perceptual barrier through dialogue remains a relevant challenge for managers and preceptors, especially beginners.
Solutions
Both described psychosocial and organizational problems can be resolved if proper resolution methods are chosen. In this case, when a manager needs to perform the function of responder or guidance giver, two measures can help them develop professional charisma. The first one is consistent and ongoing self-learning, which involves meaningful interactions with employees specifically aimed at identifying and fixing shortcomings in one’s way of interpersonal communication (Quach et al., 2020). The second way is learning from the charisma of coaches and role models. MacCauley and Moxley (1996) argue that “the aid of a coach – someone who knows the development goals and can give advice and support – should be enlisted” if one lacks communication skills (p. 18). The method of overcoming resistance to advice or valuable information from a colleague is even more straightforward. If the response recipient does not want to accept the recommendation, the manager should accept it and end this dialogue’s direction (Horstman, 2016). The HR specialist has provided instructions; the rest is on the coworker.
Helpful Strategies to Create a Feedback-rich Culture
Several conventional practical strategies for cultivating a feedback-rich culture in the entity were developed by experts in HR management that one can follow easily. One is 360-degree feedback which involves creating a feedback network with the manager as the centerpiece. It includes stages such as collecting data from different perspectives, introducing a culture of openness, and planning and implementing a self-development initiative involving coworkers (MacCauley & Moxley, 1996). An organizational culture becomes feedback-rich when everyone is friendly to interactions aimed at exchanging feedback. It can be achieved by establishing continuous learning or improvement as a cultural norm, building trusting interpersonal relationships, and making dialogue a strategic goal within an entity (Baker et al., 2013). It must be noted that this strategy is more suitable for high-ranking positions.
Issues and Solutions
One should remember that well-proven effective strategies bring both new solutions and challenges. For example, implementing an entire 360-degree feedback strategy can be sabotaged if a non-systematic data collection methodology is chosen. McCauley and Moxley (1996) advise choosing an already established and context-appropriate information-gathering technique from a scholarly field. Establishing a feedback-friendly culture can be undermined by collective resistance to such an initiative. Horstman (2016) recommends imposing feedback as systemic in the workplace in this case. Sanctions can also help, but this is considered a last resort. The first measure is more suitable for middle-level management, while the second is for upper-level management.
Conclusion
Feedback sharing is a natural way of interacting in the workplace. That is why the flow of feedback among organizational members should be smooth, fast, and informative. However, this is sometimes difficult to achieve due to psychosocial resistance in the team, wrongly chosen methodologies, a lack of competence and expertise in managers, and even the design of spaces in the facility. However, one can overcome all these through introspection and applying already-developed scholarly knowledge.
References
Baker, A., Perreault, D., Reid, A., & Blanchard, C. M. (2013). Feedback and organizations: Feedback is good, feedback-friendly culture is better. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 54(4), 260-268. Web.
Horstman, M. (2016). The effective manager. John Wiley & Sons.
McCauley, C. D., & Moxley, R. S. (1996). Developmental 360: How feedback can make managers more effective. Career Development International, 1(3), 15–19. Web.
Quach, D., Gore, S., & Schlosser, E. G. (2020). A practical guide to feedback in the workplace: Interpreting and acting on feedback from learners and direct reports. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 77(19), 1552-1555. Web.