Feedback is vital: How can leaders build a healthy feedback culture?

My work with C-level executives and CEOs spans companies and sectors: industrial, pharmaceutical, consumer goods, professional services, where executive feedback can directly influence leadership effectiveness. It’s clear that even today, feedback practices remain uneven.  

Feedback culture depends on leadership style 

Some stifle feedback. They imprison it with tacit rules: watch what you say. And despite the spread of democratic leadership, heavyweight, feedback-averse commanders still exist. They see feedback as a box‑ticking exercise, not a value-add. Not seeking it, but simply tolerating it – at best. Ticking boxes to comply with ‘HR policy’.  

A culture of living feedback is very different. Here, collaborative and consensus‑oriented leaders set the tone, naturally cascading the practice throughout the ecosystem. Feedback is embedded in people development and growth. Periodic 360‑degree processes hotwire bottom‑up and top‑down perspectives into key business topics. In one industrial company, the CEO demanded to be included alongside their team.  

Executive feedback in a VUCA world

Today, "we’re operating in a VUCA world" (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous), has become a truism. Less obvious is the extent to which clinging to fixed ideas blocks and endangers an organisation in the torrent of change. Context is just as important as a powerful vision, especially when leaders are using feedback to improve decision-making. Future‑oriented leaders understand that the world will be different six months from now. That it is critical to seek out to the unimaginable. To flex to issues that weren’t even on the radar yesterday.  

In this unpredictable environment, complexity swoops in from multiple directions – economics, politics, markets. It’s vital to harvest the observations and insights of people with different backgrounds and specialisations: collaborators, insiders, external advisors. These are the sensors that help the leader to think ahead and make better leadership decisions.

We organise 360 feedback processes for executive teams, evaluating scores and comments. We tailor the content to observations of corresponding behaviours and their frequency in daily life – top-down, bottom-up, among peers – to support leadership development.

Every company has a strategy; the real question is how you lead it, and how leadership feedback helps keep it on course.

But leadership feedback shouldn’t merely be a process; it’s a systemic attitude. And there’s a problem: even in mature organisations, it is not easy to maintain open, transparent, fact‑based and constructive feedback habits. Despite declarations about openness, feedback remains infrequent and formal, limited to the annual performance review rather than embedded in everyday feedback conversations. 

Why is constructive feedback not practised as commonly or as skilfully as it could be? One answer: feedback is an art. People need help to give and receive it through training, learning by doing, coaching. The combination of theoretical and experiential learning can ignite real organisational change, especially with the support of specialised advisors. Regular checkpoints help verify progress.  

But giving constructive feedback, especially in a development conversation, requires care. You’ll need a constructive attitude, highlighting expectations. Not only areas for improvement, but strengths, so feedback becomes part of leadership development, not judgement. Basing observations in real situations and behaviour, and co-creating ways to improve.  

Younger leaders are raising expectations for feedback 

Younger generations – Y, Z, and soon Alpha, are driving demand for frequent, fact-based employee feedback. Engagement scores show that a failure to manage feedback erodes their commitment and trust. This is reshaping HR strategies across all levels, from employee engagement to leadership development.

Senior leaders, too, are increasingly seeing the sense of executive feedback. The best practitioners know that old behaviours and experience are not enough to meet new challenges. They understand the value of authentic, reliable input from people without vested interests. There are multiple paths to a target. Choosing the right one makes flexibility and openness non-negotiable. 

Authentic feedback still depends on human connection 

Despite digital platforms, direct and authentic face-to-face communication remains the most effective way to connect and deliver meaningful feedback. Maintaining true links with people is a major organisational challenge. Overcommunication can become no communication. Sometimes, less is more. Feedback lands better when it is precise. Clear, fact‑based, timely, and one‑to‑one.  

Always keeping the goal in mind: not judgement, but leadership development.