It can be challenging to ask for feedback, especially as someone in a leadership role. Receiving feedback can trigger our human stress responses, and negative feedback can knock our confidence or identity. As a leader, receiving feedback requires humility and a willingness to admit that you aren’t perfect.
But soliciting feedback from direct reports and colleagues is an essential piece of managerial courage. Feedback can be constructive in fine-tuning your leadership approach and style. It can help you become aware of your leadership blind spots, learn more about what your team and colleagues need from you, and reassure you about positive behaviors you’re already doing.
One simple feedback method we use as part of our 360 Assessment process at Stewart Leadership is the Stop, Start, and Continue technique. Not only is the tool very flexible and easy to adapt, but it also has the benefit of generating specific, actionable feedback that can make huge improvements immediately.
Here are the three questions we ask:
- To be a more effective leader, what should this person STOP doing?
- To be a more effective leader, what should this person START doing?
- To be a more effective leader, what do you think this person should CONTINUE doing?
While these questions are simple, they have several benefits.
1. They encourage specificity and concise language.
These three questions allow the person providing the feedback to be specific and concise. The feedback givers have some constraints within the Stop, Start, and Continue framework. Rather than providing them an opportunity to express endless frustrations or avoid giving feedback altogether, this method provides a simple structure and guidance for them to help you grow. In addition, the feedback recipient learns immediately what to change and what not to change by reading just a few sentences.
2. They create actionable feedback.
The nature of specific, concise answers to these questions is that they usually provide an actionable item. For example, a direct report saying the boss is a lousy listener doesn’t provide specific, actionable feedback. However, if the direct report says the boss could stop interrupting people or start asking, “What do you think?” the boss can immediately start acting on those specific items.
3. They encourage a growth mindset.
It’s easy to fall into behavioral patterns or habits we aren’t even aware of, both as individuals and as teams. Taking a step back to ask Stop, Start, and Continue gives a degree of objectivity and can allow us to see actions that can encourage growth and improvement.
4. They are flexible.
While we use these questions for direct reports and colleagues to give leadership feedback, they can also be used in many other situations. A team might ask these questions in the middle of a project to help improve their current teamwork or at the end of a group project to improve their next team effort. Employees who want to grow their skills could ask these questions of their bosses during a 1:1. Companies could even ask these questions of their customers to improve the customer experience.
You don’t have to wait for a formal 360 Assessment or feedback session to ask these questions. Consider incorporating them into your 1:1s or team meetings. If it’s too much to solicit personal feedback in a conversation, try introducing the concept into a team setting when the questions can focus on tasks or projects. Encourage specific, behavior-focused responses, and turn some of the top responses into actionable goals for the future. When you later ask these questions about your own leadership, your direct reports and teammates will already understand how the approach works.
Soliciting feedback and then acting on it is an important part of leadership growth. With the Stop, Start, and Continue approach, you can streamline the feedback process and give yourself a way to make rapid improvements for better business results and people results.
Self-check:
- Do I use the Stop, Start, and Continue technique to solicit feedback? Why or why not?
- Is there one way I could use this approach to improve our team performance or project outcomes?
- In general, how open am I to feedback from direct reports? Would this approach provide improvements?
