User-driven feedback tools for leader development

Abstract

With the advent of app-based technology on smartphones, we now live in a "Ratings Economy" where people can provide feedback on everything from Uber drivers to the US Postal Service. So why would leaders in organizations want to receive more feedback from others? Research has shown that individuals who seek more feedback from bosses and coworkers are rated as better performers due to increased clarity about what is expected of them (Whitaker et al., Journal of Management 33:570-591, 2007). How might user-driven feedback tools be designed to allow leaders to ask for and receive more regular, high-quality feedback? And how would organizations best design user-driven feedback tools within a leader development context? The intent of this chapter is two-fold. First, we provide preliminary answers to these questions by drawing on the feedback seeking literature (Anseel et al., Journal of Management 41:318-348, 2015), best practices in designing and implementing feedback interventions for leaders (Bracken and Rose, Journal of Business and Psychology 26:183, 2011), insights from a 2018 professional conference panel on the topic (Young et al., User-driven leader feedback tools. Panel at the annual conference of the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology. Chicago, IL, 2018), and our own experience implementing these tools. Second, we suggest future directions for research in this emerging area where organizations are racing to implement tools with little evidence-based guidance to draw on.