Take the lead in your feedback seeking activity

Much is written on giving feedback; some is written on receiving feedback; less is written on actively seeking feedback. This article is an extension of taking control of your feedback experience by putting you in the driver’s seat about deciding what feedback is valuable and how to get that.

You can be a person who actively seeks feedback for yourself. As the sovereign of your workscape, feedback that you have sought can help you with all seven Responsibilities as you make decisions in leading yourself.

Feedback is often sought by organisations to provide useful knowledge on performance, opportunities for development, and improvements. Feedback is a crucial part of understanding the organisation in its broader societal and economic ecosystem and shaping strategies and priorities. It provides knowledge about what happened in the past, what’s happening in the present, and hopes for the future.

Feedback is also often given by organisations to staff to aid individual performance and development, which ultimately benefits the organisation’s success. Much has been written on how managers, leaders, and coaches can better give feedback.

Individuals often receive feedback, usually given by organisations (including managers, mentors, and coaches). It is uncommon, however, for individuals to actively seek feedback, especially on their own terms and for their personal interests and intentions. This article is a perspective and prompt for individuals to take the lead in seeking feedback.

 

Start by taking a broad view on feedback. Feedback can come in many forms: insights, suggestions, ideas, commendations, issues, warnings, risks and reactions. It can serve many purposes: validation, development, performance improvement, appreciation, planning, and strategising.

In actively seeking feedback, there are four interrelated things to consider:

• Purpose of feedback
• Sources of feedback
• Content of feedback
• Method of feedback

Purpose of feedback

Why are you choosing to seek feedback?

Ask yourself: What do I intend to do with what is shared or revealed?

You don’t need to have a fixed idea— even a vague sense is enough. It helps frame who, what, when, and how to ask for feedback.

Be clear: Is it feedback you seek, or something else? For example, ‘something else’ could be simple encouragement, or collaborative input, which isn’t truly feedback. There’s another Self unLimited article that explores this distinction further.

Source of feedback

Who is a useful source for feedback?

To get feedback that best serves your purpose, carefully consider who is the best source and what degree of psychological safety exists with that source. Seeking feedback on your own terms gives you more control over the conditions that offer appropriate safety and boundaries.

Start with yourself as a feedback source. Pay attention to what you are already feeling, seeing, and experiencing. Give this information an opportunity to be considered before listening to what others have to say. As Marcus Buckingham puts it: “You are the wisest person in your world.”

Self-reflection can also help you identify what you already know and believe. It is a good place to reveal gaps you want filled or aspects you want validated or challenged. This openness is key to defeating confirmation bias, allowing you to hear and receive more than what you already know and believe.

A trusted advisor is a great external source. Their feedback can be grounded in useful context and personal understanding about you, making it more significant to you. Choose someone who can give honest feedback without ego, serving your needs.

Sometimes you might seek feedback from a stranger. Their lack of history with you allows them to provide fresh insights that can sometimes be surprising and uninfluenced by prior knowledge. Being a stranger, you may never need to cross paths with them again, so if it is not feedback that sits well with you – there are no relationship implications to deal with.

Content of feedback

What feedback will specifically serve your purpose?

If you seek growth and development, feedback in the form of insights, suggestions, and challenges is valuable. If you want to validate a decision, then confirmation or recommendations might be most helpful. If you want to improve your work product, output or performance, then reactions, issues and risks might be useful.

When people ask me generally for feedback, I always ask them what kind of specific feedback they’re seeking. Without this clarity, relationships can suffer if my feedback doesn’t align with their unstated expectations. Sometimes what they are really seeking is simply validation or testimonial for their work, and I will not serve them well with a critique on improvements to make!

Consider that feedback is simply an opinion, a perspective seen through the eyes of others. It is not universal truth. So be prepared to use what’s useful and ignore the rest.

Daniel Pink advocates for asking for advice rather than feedback because it leads to more actionable and constructive input. According to Pink, when you ask for feedback, people tend to focus on evaluating past actions, which often results in vague or overly polite responses. In contrast, asking for advice shifts the focus towards future improvements, encouraging more helpful and specific suggestions on what to do next.

Method of feedback

How will the knowledge you seek be best discovered or revealed?

Prepare yourself for what you might receive. In seeking feedback, you are giving a temporary form of power for another to speak to you in their voice with their truth. To ensure this exchange is valuable, it’s crucial to create mutual conditions for psychological safety. This means establishing trust, where both parties feel safe to share openly without fear of judgment, and ensuring boundaries are respected, allowing the conversation to remain honest and constructive​​

One way to seek feedback is to ask a couple of open-ended questions or prompts. These can work well in a conversation or written form, giving the feedback-giver space to offer broad, free-flowing responses.

Alternatively, if you need more targeted responses, specific questions or prompts—perhaps through a form or questionnaire—can be useful. This method works well if you’re collecting feedback from multiple sources and want to summarise it. However, it can constrain the giver’s full thoughts.

Seeking feedback in real-time conversations offers a unique opportunity for immediate exchange and refinement. Engaging directly with someone allows you to ask follow-up questions, gain clarity on points of confusion, and probe deeper into areas of importance. The value here is in the fluidity of the dialogue, as both sides can adjust their thoughts on the fly—leading to richer insights that might not emerge from more static methods like written feedback. There’s also the added benefit of interpreting body language and tone, which can reveal subtleties not captured in text​​.

A word of caution if you ask for feedback in writing: People tend to scan rather than read deeply. They might offer general thoughts instead of personal perspectives. They often assume what you mean and proceed without checking their understanding. They might offer what they think is valuable and not what you asked as being valuable to you. They might be exuberant in their generosity and provide more than what you asked for.

Whatever method you choose, make sure it fits the nature of the feedback you’re seeking.

And once you have the feedback, consider how best to process and apply it. Do you integrate it with other feedback you have received or reflect on it independently first? You may even work with a coach to make sense of the feedback, reveal additional insights and determine useful ways to use what you have learnt.

 

In taking the lead to seek feedback, you’re positioning yourself for growth and deeper understanding of your work. By thoughtfully selecting your purpose, source, content, and method, you ensure the feedback you gather is meaningful and actionable. Whether seeking self-reflection or external perspectives, remember that your approach shapes the value you will gain. So, embrace feedback as a tool for your own workscape sovereignty.

 

Author

Helen Palmer is a workscape navigator, and creator of the Self unLimited philosophy. She helps people take ownership of their workscape, which can include accessing knowledge from others to help you grow and improve. She blends practical wisdom with actionable advice so individuals can craft a workscape that is meaningful and valuable.