We use mirrors all the time to check how we look to the outside world.

My question is: How often do you hold a mirror up to your leadership skills?

As a leader, it’s tough to know how others perceive you. One useful tool is the 360° assessment, where you ask for formal inputs from employees, partners, and those above you in the organization. I’ve even seen those who ask for inputs from customers.

This is a fairly extensive exercise, so it’s not something you’re going to do every month. So what’s more practical?

Here’s the trick: Ask open-ended questions in an environment which encourages throughfulness and honesty.

Let’s say you pose this question to your group in a meeting: “How do you think I can improve what I’m doing?”

Thank you for being courageous enough to ask the question. But a problem is that people don’t want to criticize you to your face, so even if people do speak up, it’s not going to be very deep. And they certainly don’t want to expose their thoughts in front of the rest of the group, even if they believe that most others share their viewpoint.

There might be one employee who doesn’t care about these kinds of things who blurts out the first thing that’s annoying them today. That puts everyone in a very uncomfortable situation, and is unlikely to be useful.

So we can conclude is that it’s probably better to ask these kinds of questions one-on-one. And with a bit more context than just blurting out the question above. “Susan, I’ve been working on my communication skills. That class I took last week was pretty useful and it gave me some interesting ideas. I’d appreciate your honest observations about what you see I could do better in my communication.”

Also note that this was more specific than just “what can I improve?” – thus helping the person to imagine exact situations. And it felt like you were more open to a bit of honest feedback. If you have a reasonably trusting relationship with this person, they may give you some good ideas.

Of course it’s up to you to figure out exactly how you want to change your behaviors as a result. It’s going to take some deep thought and reflection.

Like holding up a mirror.