Know Thyself: Leaders who have the courage to ask
Early in my career, I thought “being a good leader” = “having all the answers”. The more senior you were, the more you were supposed to know — and the less you were supposed to need from the people around you. Asking for feedback felt like admitting a gap. And admitting a gap felt like a liability.
It took years — and more than a few hard moments of clarity — to understand that the most effective leaders I had ever encountered weren't the ones with the most answers. They were the ones who understood themselves well enough to know where they ended and where someone else needed to begin.
The craziest realization was that self-awareness isn't a personality trait you either have or don't. It's a practice — one that requires honesty, humility, and the willingness to invite perspectives that might be uncomfortable to hear. To coin a phrase from a business development leader I love, Patrick Lencioni, “the best type of leader is a self-aware one.” So how do we become self aware?
What self-aware leadership actually looks like
Self-aware leaders don't just know their strengths — they know how their strengths can become liabilities if left unchecked. The visionary who never slows down to bring the team along. The detail-oriented manager who gets so deep in the weeds that strategy suffers. The communicator who is so focused on the message that they forget to listen.
I've invested seriously in understanding how I'm wired — through tools like Myers-Briggs, Gallup StrengthsFinder, DISC, and Working Genius. Not because any single framework tells the whole story, but because each one offers a different angle of reflection. They've helped me name patterns I recognized in myself but couldn't articulate, and they've given me language to use with teams to talk more honestly about how we work together.
But here's what no assessment tool can fully give you: the unfiltered perspective of the people who work alongside you every day. That only comes from asking.
Awkward, huh.
Why Leaders Don’t Ask — but they should
There are a lot of reasons leaders avoid seeking feedback. Some fear what they'll hear. Some worry that asking will be perceived as weakness or uncertainty. Some are just too busy — feedback conversations feel like a luxury when the to-do list is already overwhelming.
Some assume that they fully understand their own weaknesses already. Others make excuses that it’s just how they’re wired — it’s everyone else who just needs to adapt.
Avoidance of feedback (and the change it will requires) has a cost. When leaders don't invite feedback, they don't stop receiving it — they just stop receiving it directly. It goes underground, into side conversations, quiet disengagement, and eventually, turnover. The information you most need to grow as a leader doesn't disappear because you didn't ask for it. It just becomes unavailable to you.
Sit with that thought for a minute.
As Newton told us, energy is neither created nor destroyed. It’s just transferred. So the consequences of your bad habits have to go somewhere. And it often ends up on top of the other people in your organization.
And on the receiving end — when someone does offer feedback, unsolicited or otherwise — the response matters enormously. A leader who reacts defensively, dismisses critique, or punishes candor trains their team, quickly and permanently, to stop telling them the truth. That's an isolation that can feel like loyalty but functions like a blindfold.
So how do you ask for feedback and make it count?
Asking for feedback is a skill. And like most skills, it requires both practice and intent.
My six-year-old came to me recently complaining that she never gets a foot on the ball during soccer matches. My first question (after first acknowledging how hard it is to be six and facing competition for the first time in your life…) to her was, “what can you practice before the game to help you get better?” My second was, “what do you do when the ball does comes to you?”
I could have easily given her some general advice, like “just go out there and get in the middle” or “be more aggressive.” But neither of those statements helped her to recognize her personal contribution to getting better at soccer. Instead, I invited her to reflect about what things she did during practice that related to that specific challenge. And secondly, I encouraged her to be deliberate with the opportunities that did present themselves to her.
So a few principles that have shaped how I approach feedback:
Be specific. "How am I doing?" is a question most people won't answer honestly — it's too open, and the stakes of the answer feel too high and too personal. It feels like it’s about the individual themself, not the behavioral patterns they bring. "What's one thing I could do differently in how I run our team meetings?" is answerable. Or, “If we reran this project, what’s one thing I could do better?” Specific questions signal that you genuinely want useful input, not reassurance.
Ask regularly, not just in crisis. Leaders who only seek feedback when something has gone wrong teach their teams that feedback is a consequence, not a conversation. When you build it into the rhythm of your work — after every project wraps, at the end of a month or a quarter, during your regular one-on-one — it becomes normal rather than loaded. It says “feedback is our culture.” You are open to giving and receiving it.
Receive fully before you respond. When feedback lands in a way that stings, the instinct is to explain, defend, or contextualize — immediately. Resist it. Thank the person. Let it sit. It’s even okay to ask for time to reflect and return to it when you can engage with curiosity rather than defensiveness. Not every piece of feedback will be right, but almost every piece will contain something worth considering.
Close the loop. If someone took a risk in giving you honest feedback, let them know you heard it — and, when you can, show them what changed. Nothing builds trust faster than a leader who says, "I thought about what you shared, and here's what I'm going to do differently." It tells your team that speaking up is worth it.
An important note on closing the loop: if you are making the change, don’t make the change in silence. If someone took that risk and gave that feedback, they can’t know what’s on your mind or what happens behind the door or off the screen.
What does this have to do with communications?
As a communicator and a human being, I think a lot about how leaders show up — not just in formal presentations, but in the daily texture of how they listen, respond, and make people feel heard. The way a leader handles feedback is, itself, a form of communication. It signals what kind of culture exists inside an organization far more loudly than any mission statement or brand guide ever could.
Organizations that communicate well externally — with donors, with clients, with their communities — don’t always communicate well internally. Sometimes, that might be because they think the work will just do itself. That the way that communications happens must be obvious, since they do it a certain way to the outside.
Self-awareness isn't a destination. It's the ongoing, often uncomfortable, always worthwhile work of becoming a leader your team actually wants to follow.
Let’s keep the words flowing
Leadership development and communications strategy are more intertwined than most people realize — and it's a thread I'll keep pulling on here at Words with Impact. If this resonated, I'd love to hear your thoughts. And if you're looking for a communications partner who brings this kind of reflective, intentional approach to the work, let's talk.
XOXO,
Laney