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Low score on leadership and collaboration

Confronting a red score and critical feedback on leadership or collaboration within the department can be tough. Here's the industrial psychologist's 5-step guide to handling a follow-up, which can be challenging and vulnerable for both you and your employees.

01: Preparation before the dialogue meeting.

Take the time to digest the results of the assessment and a score that might be lower than expected. The worst thing you can do in this situation is to hastily jump into a dialogue with your employees, especially if you feel affected by the results.

Review the questions related to the assessment of yourself as a leader and consider where you see the need to develop your own leadership behavior and collaboration with your employees:

  1. My leader cares about my opinions.
  2. Most of my experiences with my leader are positive.
  3. In general, my leader treats me in an appropriate manner.
  4. My leader is interested in me as a person.

It can also be valuable to discuss the results with your supervisor, an HR consultant, or a trusted colleague who is also a leader.

In some situations, feedback from a leadership assessment can be difficult to accept, and in such cases, it may be valuable to have an experienced coach to help you with interpretation.

Questions you can ask yourself

  • What is your overall impression of the combined responses?
  • In what areas is your leadership effort appreciated?
  • Where are there opportunities for improvements?
  • Are there differences in the responses from participants? (consider response distribution)
  • Is there anything in the results that you don't immediately understand?
  • Which parts of the results do you particularly need others' interpretations and elaborations on?
  • Is there anything in the results where you need to provide your own interpretation to your employees?

02: Setting the framework and clarifying the rules

It's important to establish the context for a productive process. A low score can create uncertainty – both for you and your employees, who might be unsure about whether and how to articulate their criticism, feedback, and expectations for you as a leader. Display guidelines such as the ones below in the room where the dialogue will take place and go over them as part of the introduction.

Guidelines for you as a leader

  • Never ask individuals how they rated you:

  • Listen to what your employees say – without interrupting

  • Ask questions to the group as a whole, not individual employees

  • Remember, participation in the dialogue is voluntary

  • Refrain from challenging your employees, even if you feel misunderstood or misinterpreted.

  • Rather than getting defensive, accept various statements as honest and constructive feedback

Guidelines for the employees

  • Be honest and constructive

  • Do not discuss who gave what answers

  • Respect that we can perceive reality differently

  • Feel free to suggest specific changes

  • Avoid backward accusations – instead, formulate forward-looking desires

  • Stick to your own opinion and refrain from speculating about others' opinions

  • Also discuss what employees can do to improve the conditions for leadership

03: Presenting the Results

When you're presenting the results of the well-being survey, remember that highlighting the positive aspects is also important, even if you're currently focused on the areas with lower scores.

If you find it challenging to present the results yourself, you can ask an HR consultant to do it.

You can signal that:

  • You might have hoped for different results from the survey.
  • You had expectations that certain areas would have lower scores.
  • You're open to listening to your employees' suggestions on how to improve collaboration in their daily work.

04: Involvement of Employees

It's crucial to involve your employees in analyzing the results and prioritize diving into the low scores in leadership and collaboration. This is an opportunity for you to gather input on what you can do to improve collaboration.

Give employees the opportunity to ask questions about the results as you go through them. Be aware that some might feel inclined to share what they've answered, especially if their responses differ from the majority. However, that's not the purpose of the meeting.

Carefully consider how you facilitate the dialogue and incorporate employees' feedback and suggestions. It's unlikely that many would openly criticize their leader in a public forum – as they might be concerned about potential consequences.

To prevent the power dynamics between leader and employee from hindering an open and honest dialogue, you could divide participants into groups where they share their ideas and suggestions on post-it notes. This way, you avoid individuals feeling exposed. Only one suggestion per post-it – and emphasize that the suggestion should be as concrete as possible.

Ask them to come up with suggestions for what they would like to see you:

  • do more of (green post-it)
  • do less of (blue post-it)
  • start doing (pink post-it)
  • and what you should continue doing (orange)

Also, inquire about what they can do themselves to make this successful.

An example could be if they suggest you should be more visible:

  • What does that mean in daily practice?
  • Where and when would they like to see you more?
  • Can they provide an example of how it would look in their daily routines when you are more visible?

05: Agree on concrete initiative

When employees present their suggestions, pay close attention and listen carefully. Keep the following in mind:

  • What are you pleased to hear?
  • What surprises you?
  • What can you change/initiate right away, and what will you commit to?
  • What requires you to think and possibly consult others?
  • Are there conditions and constraints that you cannot or will not change? How will you explain this?
  • What do you need from your employees to succeed in collaboration?

Remember to thank them for their contributions and openness.

If there are many suggestions, it might be a good idea to ask employees to prioritize what will make the most significant difference. It's better to have fewer but important focal points than too many that you won't be able to follow up on.

Clearly state what you commit to doing/changing now and what you might revisit later. Also, explain how you will follow up and ensure that the initiatives have the desired effect.

You can gather the initiatives in a written action plan, which you can send to the employees afterwards.

More inspiration

Need guidance?

Consultation with an AS3 leadership consultant is included in your company's subscription to the EVI well-being survey.

Write directly to Trivselsraadgiver@as3.dk - and we'll call you back.

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