Your Teams Are the Heroes of Every Win
January 27, 2026 · By Chanttel Allen
Your teams are the heroes of every win. They're the ones in the trenches, seeing what you can't see, knowing what's really happening on the ground.
So why do we wait 3–6 months to ask them what they think? How to improve? How satisfied are they in their jobs?
I used to dread doing quarterly reviews with employees. They made me anxious.
They felt performative and arbitrary.
I'd sit there with my carefully prepared notes, thinking my job was to check all the boxes, say all the "right" things. It was uncomfortable because it wasn't authentic or productive.
Then Something Shifted
(Learning how to use EOS® tools and the book Radical Candor by Kim Scott brought this on) Radical Candor by Kim Scott brought this on)
I started asking my team for feedback about me. About my approach. About what I was missing.
For example: What do I need to know that I don't know about… (my leadership, the department, etc.)?
And here's the vulnerable part… sometimes their feedback hurt. Sometimes it was clumsy or hard to hear. But every single time, there was truth in it. Truth that made me better.
Throughout my years in survey research, I've heard countless consumers say, "I wish someone had listened to my feedback and actually changed something."
We have that opportunity as leaders. Right now. With our teams.
But we miss it when we're too busy being the expert, the one with all the answers, minimizing their POV for the sake of our egos. It doesn't work!
It kills culture.
The challenge is being brave enough to ask the hard questions and humble enough to really listen.
What if we all asked for feedback this week? Not in six months. This week. Today.
Start small and watch the habit grow.
Ready to build a feedback-driven culture?