Some time ago, the Stanford Graduate School of Business asked its 75 member Advisory Council to rate the capabilities which leaders needed to develop in themselves. A majority picked self-awareness as the most important leadership trait.

That survey defined self-awareness as the ability to identify ‘personal idiosyncrasies' – strengths and weaknesses, in other words. One of the key tools to developing self-awareness is using feedback. Knowing how your colleagues, bosses, clients, even friends and family view you can go a long way in helping you understand your own character traits.

Companies recognise this. This is why feedback is such a key part of the appraisal process. However, the process is not without risk — particularly for the person providing the feedback. Forget providing ‘honest feedback' to your boss — most of us tend to shy away from saying harsh things even about our colleagues or team members.

So what does one do?

Should you be ruthlessly honest in providing feedback, in the hope that others would do the same with you? Or is the Gandhian policy of ‘See no evil, Speak no evil, hear no evil' a safer policy to pursue?

Send in your views, in not more than 200 words, with name, organisation and contact details before May 31 to >thenewmanager@thehindu.co.in

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