Receptivity to Feedback: How Do Leaders Respond to Developmental Assessments?

• In Event: The Evaluations Are In: Are You Curious?

Short Description

While much attention is paid to test outcomes and their predictive value for performance, research seldom addresses how the assessed person responds to the test results. Do they reach out to better understand and develop their leadership style or do they shrink back with defensiveness or resistance? Presenters will share research exploring these and other questions.

Detailed Abstract

SIGNIFICANCE
Psychometric tests have been incorporated as leadership development tools to provide feedback about the leader’s thinking paradigms and habits of mind. This feedback aims to help them to adjust their thinking-in-action, important in turbulent work environments.

In our leadership development practice and research we apply the Global Leadership Profile (GLP), which is based on Loevinger’s ego-development test (Cook-Greuter, 1999; Loevinger, 1998). This work implies an adult developmental approach to leadership that is distinctive in that it describes the structure of a leader’s approach to problem resolution through different levels of complexity. It assesses how leaders organise their approach to assessing a situation and decision-making, not the nature of their personalities.

While much attention is paid to test outcomes and their predictive value for behavior or performance, research seldom addresses how the assessed person responds to the test itself. Our research aims to explore how business leaders experience getting to know their leadership development test results.

FRAMEWORK
The GLP framework arranges a person’s response to problem resolution across a continuum of eight action-logics; from the earliest and least complex action-logic, Opportunistic, with its reactive and short-term mindset to one that is cross-paradigmatic and systems aware (Alchemical frame). In between sits the Diplomatic (rule adherence), Expert (prioritising mastery of skill and knowledge), Achiever (conscientiously attending to causes, consequences and solutions), Redefining challenging the value and integrity of frameworks and Transforming, applying timely attention to the system (Torbert, 2004).

The GLP comprises three points of feedback, 1st, 2nd & 3rd person. Individuals receive a GLP report (3rd person feedback), identifying their centre-of-gravity as well as their fallback and emergent tendencies. Importantly, before receiving this report, leaders engage in a preparatory process in which they a) self-assess their action-logic, (1st person) and b) receive feedback from colleagues (2nd person). In the case of our research organization, the facilitating consultants also, c) independently, introduced small group discussions on the meaning of transformation and the nature of the personal leadership journey into the preparatory process.

Only once 1st and 2nd person preparations are complete, do the participants receive their report. The aim here is to provide an opportunity for leaders to become actively engaged in the matter of their development rather than mere recipients of the assessment. The report, therefore, is framed not as the centrepiece or “judge” but one element of a collaborative inquiry. Through this three-pronged approach leaders are invited to a) differentiate between the different points of feedback, b) integrate the information and so c) come to their own conclusions and questions about their development.

QUESTIONS
How do leaders respond to the GLP assessment? Specifically, we wondered if they are receptive or resistant. Do they, in the moments after receiving the report, reach out to better understand, test and development their leadership style or do they shrink back, with defensiveness, a lack of interest or resistance? Do they see the developmental approach as relevant or redundant, a threat or does it dovetail with and prolong the person’s own leadership project? And, if they are curious about “next steps,” what are their priorities?

DESIGN
To answer these questions, 46 corporate leaders, while partaking in a leadership development program were asked to write responses to the following two questions: . “When I received my report I …”; and “The questions I have or themes I’d like to discuss are …”

The responses were then analyzed with Giorgi’s (2009) descriptive phenomenological method concentrating on experienced meaning. This well-established qualitative method consists of systematic steps that take into account all written text as relevant data, does withhold the researchers theoretical stance or thematic preferences, and thus allows the structure of meaning and relevant issues as experienced by participants to come forward.

RESULTS
The results show that participants initially frame their response in terms of surprise. Being surprised signals something more than that the feedback is ‘unexpected’, namely a ‘confrontation with novelty’ vis-à-vis one’s way of making sense of work life. Participants try to reconcile any differences between the report’s assessment of their leadership development (action-logic), their self-assessment and that of their colleagues. The person’s psychological self-understanding is then explicated through specific work events. Touched by any novel perspectives on self, the person considers their potential for development. This may come with uncertainty about how to realize the potential, where to look for support and whether such development is worthwhile.

CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that through the GLP process a new project of self or identity has announced its presence, inviting the leader to enter an uncertain space – not just uncertainty about the effectiveness of their leadership but how to achieve an extended way of sense-making and what this may look like for the person. While some persons may arrest their search upon having established coherence (having moved from surprise to closure), most display an interest in inquiring further into their leadership performance.

IMPLICATIONS
The balance of acceptance versus openness to further exploration begs further research and a response from the organization; what are the leaders leaning into and what might the organization provide by way of support? Further research can also focus on the second person perspective: the other’s way of making sense of the world. Some participants wonder what their team thinks about their action logic; a few wonder how to see others using this lens. This understanding of the “other” could be explored further in inquiry groups/learning circles where individuals focus on trying to better appreciate the other’s structure of mind and action.

Participants

• Rob Bongaardt, University College of Southeast Norway

• Elaine Herdman-Barker, Global Leadership Associates