Executive Feedback
Executive Feedback gathers structured input from the people around a senior leader, board, reports, peers, clients, and synthesises it into themes, so the leader hears a pattern rather than one person's opinion or nothing at all.
Stages run in a chain, opening with question design and closing where the surfaced themes turn into next steps.
Reach for this when…
- A senior leader is due for formal review and self-report alone won't cut it.
- Rumours about someone's style circulate but nobody says it to their face.
- A succession decision needs a clear-eyed picture before it's made.
How to run it
- Design interview questions specific to the executive's role and context.
- Interview five to ten stakeholders: board, direct reports, peers, clients.
- Synthesise the interviews into themes, not a list of quotes.
- Present the findings directly to the executive in a debrief session.
- Build a development plan from the themes that came up most often.
A worked example
Situation. Oksana Kovalenko was clinical director at Zdorovya Med, a private hospital group in Lviv, Ukraine, and the board wanted a clear picture of her before renewing her contract.
Applied. Eight interviews across surgeons, nurses and board members surfaced one theme nobody had said aloud in a meeting: she made decisions fast but never explained the reasoning, so people executed without buy-in.
Result. The debrief landed hard but clean, because it was eight people's independent language, not one person's grudge. Her development plan targeted exactly that: explain before you decide.
The catch
Interviews of five to ten people can surface one loud voice dressed up as a theme if the interviewer doesn't cross-check. Confidentiality has to be airtight or people soften what they say, and once it's broken, no future round gets honest input again. The debrief moment is genuinely risky; delivered badly it reads as an ambush, not a gift.
If you can trace a quote back to a person, so can the executive, and the next round gets nothing but praise.
Origin: Dale Williams / Various