Assess Your Effectiveness at Getting and Giving FeedbackAlbert Einstein’s oft quoted definition of insanity is, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we’ll keep getting what we’ve been getting. To move our leadership effectiveness to a new level, we need to blaze new paths.

Feedback is critical to increased leadership effectiveness. Leaders “on the grow” use feedback to guide their development. And highly effective leaders provide feedback to others to coach and guide their growth.

As you set out on the adventure of blazing your pathways into 2014 consider this recent research on the power of feedback:

• Leaders ranked in the bottom 10% in asking for feedback were rated at the 15th percentile in overall leadership effectiveness.
• Leaders ranked in the top 10% in asking for feedback were rated in the 86th percentile in overall leadership effectiveness.
• Leaders ranked in the bottom 10% in their ability to give honest feedback to direct reports showed engagement scores in the 25th percentile.
• Leaders rated as better at giving feedback than 90% of their peers had direct reports ranked at the 77th percentile in engagement.

How good are you at getting and giving feedback? Zenger Folkman just developed a self-assessment tool to help you measure this vital leadership behavior and skill. Go to “Overcoming Feedback Phobia: Take the First Step” for more on this vital topic from Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman’s latest Harvard Business Review blog and a link to the self-assessment.

Don’t be drawn down the well-travelled and broad path toward insanity. Take the path less travelled, be an Einstein, and use feedback to spring forward in 2014!


For over three decades, Jim Clemmer’s keynote presentations, workshops, management team retreats, seven bestselling books, articles, and blog have helped hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. The Clemmer Group is the Canadian strategic partner of Zenger Folkman, an award-winning firm best known for its unique evidence-driven, strengths-based system for developing extraordinary leaders and demonstrating the performance impact they have on organizations.