The Art of Requesting Feedback: Building Trust Through Vulnerability in Inclusive Leadership

“How could we improve our behaviours without other people’s help? An inclusive culture is a feedback culture.”

As inclusive leaders, we face a fundamental challenge: we cannot see ourselves as others see us. Our unconscious biases, ingrained habits, and natural blind spots prevent us from fully understanding our impact on others. This is why requesting feedback isn’t just helpful – it’s essential for our growth and effectiveness.

Yet how often do we genuinely ask our team members for feedback about our leadership? In my experience, few leaders do it regularly. There’s something vulnerable about opening ourselves up to criticism, about admitting that we might not be as inclusive as we think we are.

The Power of Asking

Being transparent about our learning journey as inclusive leaders and asking for help is itself an act of inclusive leadership. It demonstrates humility, models continuous learning, and nurtures psychological safety within our teams. When we tell our teams, “I’m trying to become a more inclusive leader, please help me to be accountable, let me know if I make any mistakes or how I can improve,” we’re doing something powerful.

We’re showing that leadership isn’t about having all the answers – it’s about being willing to learn, grow, and change. This vulnerability creates space for others to be vulnerable too, fostering the kind of psychological safety that’s essential for inclusion.

Focus on the Other Person, Not Ourselves

Here’s a counterintuitive truth: the best way to get feedback about ourselves is neither to focus on ourselves nor to focus on the past. The best way is to focus on the other person and on the future.

During one-to-ones, instead of asking, “How am I doing as a leader?” we can ask questions like:

• “Do you feel you belong here?”
• “Do you feel included?”
• “Do you feel you’re treated fairly? Why or why not?”
• “What do you need to feel more supported and included?”

These questions shift the focus from our performance to their experience. They create space for honest conversation about inclusion without putting people in the uncomfortable position of directly critiquing us.

Building Your Inclusion Advisory Board

We can also gain greater self-awareness by seeking feedback from our line manager, peers, or from a group of trusted colleagues. Think of it as our “Inclusion Advisory Board” – people who can provide us with insight into how we’re being perceived.

This board doesn’t need to be formal or official. It might be a few trusted colleagues who’ve agreed to give us honest feedback about our inclusive leadership practices. The key is choosing people who:

• Have different perspectives and backgrounds
• Are willing to be honest with us
• Care about our growth and development
• Have observed our leadership in action

If we’re in an organisation that offers 360-degree assessments, we should try to access them as they can be powerful tools for understanding how others perceive our leadership.

The Team Discussion Exercise

One of the most revealing exercises we can do is asking our team to have a discussion about us as an inclusive leader without our presence. The goal is for them to identify our strengths and opportunity areas, then report back to us anonymously via a spokesperson.

This is one of the assignments I ask participants in my inclusive leadership programmes to complete between sessions. For most of them, it’s not an easy exercise – it requires courage and vulnerability. But they consistently report that their teams love going through it, experiencing it as a team-building exercise.

Leaders are usually surprised by the feedback they receive. We tend to take our strengths for granted, and our opportunity areas tend to be blind spots. The exercise often reveals gaps between our intentions and our impact that we simply couldn’t see on our own.

Making Inclusion Everyday Business

Leadership expert Minette Norman suggests that we evaluate and discuss inclusion with our team as frequently as we review project goals and resources. This moves inclusion from an often-back-burner-nice-to-have-when-we-have-time status to everyday business.

We can regularly ask questions like:

• “How are we doing regarding inclusion and belonging?”
• “What suggestions do you have for improving inclusion in our team?”
• “What barriers to inclusion have you noticed?”
• “Where do you see opportunities for us to be more inclusive?”

These conversations should be as routine as discussing project deadlines or budget allocations. When inclusion becomes part of our regular dialogue, it becomes embedded in our team culture.

Using Organisational Tools

When we’re fortunate enough to be in an organisation that runs engagement surveys with inclusion and belonging questions, or stand-alone inclusion and belonging surveys, their results provide us with valuable input. This is especially true when results are broken down by demographic category, provided this doesn’t jeopardise survey confidentiality.

Discussing our results as a team can be an insightful exercise. We can explore questions like:

• “What do these results tell us about our team’s experience of inclusion?”
• “Where are we doing well, and where can we improve?”
• “What specific actions can we take based on this feedback?”

The Trust Prerequisite

It’s important to note that these feedback conversations will only be useful when we’ve already established a minimum trust level with our direct reports. If trust is present, having these conversations and acting on the feedback will be a trust booster. If trust is lacking, people may not feel safe to give honest feedback.

Building this trust requires consistency, follow-through, and genuine care for our team members’ wellbeing and development. We must demonstrate that we can handle feedback without becoming defensive, that we value different perspectives, and that we’re committed to acting on what we learn.

Educating While Learning

If our team isn’t as familiar with inclusive leadership concepts as we are, we should take the opportunity to educate them whilst finding out what inclusion looks like for them. This might involve:

• Sharing articles or resources about inclusion
• Facilitating team discussions about different dimensions of inclusion
• Exploring what psychological safety means to different team members
• Understanding how different people experience belonging

This educational component ensures everyone is working from a shared understanding of what inclusive leadership looks like.

The Courage to Be Vulnerable

Requesting feedback requires courage. It means admitting that we don’t have all the answers, that we might be making mistakes, and that we need help to improve. This vulnerability can feel uncomfortable, especially for those of us who’ve been taught that leadership means having all the answers.

But this vulnerability is actually a strength. It shows our humanity, models continuous learning, and creates space for others to be vulnerable too. When we’re willing to acknowledge our shortcomings and ask for help, we give others permission to do the same.

Moving Forward

The journey of inclusive leadership is ongoing. We don’t arrive at a destination where we’ve “mastered” inclusion – we continue learning, growing, and adapting. Requesting feedback is a crucial part of this journey, helping us bridge the gap between our intentions and our impact.

As we develop our feedback-seeking skills, we create more inclusive environments for everyone. We model the kind of openness and growth mindset that makes psychological safety possible. We demonstrate that everyone – including leaders – has room to grow and improve.

The question isn’t whether we need feedback about our inclusive leadership – we do. The question is whether we have the courage to ask for it and the wisdom to act on what we learn.

This article is adapted from my upcoming book “Practising Inclusive Leadership,” which explores practical strategies for creating truly inclusive workplaces and leading with authenticity and impact.