COML 602 CAPSTONE
DISCIPLINARY GROUNDING
Building Trust in the Workplace through Gathering Feedback and Taking Action
Introduction
Building relationships and trust in the workplace among colleagues and leaders is important for team morale, building a strong inclusive culture, and improving productivity. One way to build relationships and develop trust is through feedback. Whether it be peer to peer, manager to employee, or employee to manager, feedback is an important part of growing, both personally and professionally. Feedback is defined as “information about a person’s performance or behavior, or the impact of performance or behavior, that is intentionally delivered to that person in order to facilitate change or improvement” (Van et al., 1997, p. 36). Traditionally, one may think the primary source of feedback is manager to employee; however, it is equally as important for a manager or leader to receive feedback from their employees and teams on to capture insights on organizational health, workplace culture, and raise concerns that may require elevated help, especially when in a time of organizational instability due to reorganizations, leadership changes, mergers, etc. Any feedback a leader obtains “can be formal, or informal, direct or implicit…blunt or baroque, totally obvious or so subtle that you’re not sure what it is” (Stone et al., 2014, p. 4). Harvard Business Review authors highlight “asking for feedback…creates a culture of trust and transparency…when employees feel like their input matters, they’re more likely to remain loyal, engaged, and productive” (Fosslien et al., 2023). Not only is feedback important in building relationships and developing trust; it is also important for employees to see their leaders follow through on any changes based on what they hear. When feedback is given and employees feel or see nothing has changed, it can create negative feelings towards the leader, impact workplace culture, and create distrust in the organization.
Disciplinary Grounding
There are several communication theories and principles that are foundational to building relationships and trust. Interpersonal communication, which is defined as communication between individuals, is an important communication principle for building relationships and trust (Hartley, 1999, p. 20). Leaders must lean on communication among their peers, managers, and employees to help meet business objectives and create organizational stability. Especially in times during uncertainty and organizational instability, people rely on communication with others to help reduce uncertainty. Systems theory is another communication theory foundational to building relationships and trust. Systems theory is a pillar in organizational communication focused on understanding the elements contributing to problems within a system from inside the organization, rather than concluding the “causes” from the outside perspective (Conrad et al., 2012, p. 32). When leaders have multiple layers of management below them, they can face challenges in being able to see problems at the working level. Without gathering feedback from employees, leaders may make decisions or changes based on incomplete information. By meeting with team members at different levels and creating a safe environment to provide feedback and build trust, a leader can gather insights, lean into the key principles of systems theory by understanding multiple elements within the system, or organization. Once a leader gathers those insights, they can better define how to resolve issues and establish a feedback loop back to employees. One of the reservation holding employees back from providing feedback to leadership is that nothing happens, or they don’t see the actions being taken at their level. Communication throughout the feedback-receiving process is critical, and even more so towards the end when actions are being taken.
At the core of gathering feedback, leaders must practice active listening. Active listening is defined as “a higher form of listening to gain a deeper understanding of the message and the context” (Jonsdottir et al., 2019, p. 179). Judi Brownell established a six-stage active listening model – 1) focusing their attention, 2) comprehend the speakers' message, 3) recalling information contained in the message, 4) interpret messages, 5) evaluating the message, and 6) how the leader decides to respond (higher form of listening to gain a deeper understanding of the message and the context” (Jonsdottir et al., p. 180). Employees must feel as though a leader is actively listening to what they have to say and are going to take action on what they hear; if they do not, employees can shut down and not speak up. When requesting feedback, one needs to be receptive to receive it, no matter how negative or positive the feedback will be. Exercising active listening in feedback sessions will help a leader understand the problems and challenges.
References
Conrad, C. & Poole, M. S. (2012). Strategic organizational communication in a global economy (p. 30-70). (7th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
Fosslien, L., Scott, K., & West Duffy, M. (2023, March 10). How leaders can get the feedback they need to grow. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from https://hbr.org/2023/03/how-leaders-can-get-the-feedback-they-need-to-grow.
Hartley, P. (1999). Interpersonal communication (p. 16-27). Taylor & Francis Group.
Jonsdottir, J. & Fridriksdottir, K. (2019, May 12). Active listening: is it the forgotten dimension in managerial communication? (p. 178-188). International Journal of Listening, https://doi.org/10.1080/10904018.2019.1613156.
Stone, D., & Heen, S. (2014). Thanks for the feedback: the science and art of receiving feedback well: (even when it is off base, unfair, poorly delivered, and frankly, you’re not in the mood) (p. 1-11). Viking Penguin.
Van, V. E., Leslie, J. B., & Fleenor, J. (1997). Choosing 360: a guide to evaluating multi-rater feedback instruments for management development (p. 35-38). Center for Creative Leadership.