The Leader's Kitbag

How to Ask for Feedback at Work and Get Honest Answers From Your Team

“How am I doing?”

It’s a well-intentioned question. And it almost always gets the same answer: “Yeah, fine. All good.”

Over the last two episodes of The Leaders Kitbag, I’ve looked at how to give feedback well. In this episode, I flip it round. One of the questions I’m asked most often on my leadership programmes is how to get feedback on how you’re doing as a leader.

The challenge is that broad questions like “Have you got any feedback for me?” leave people unsure where to begin. And there’s a bigger problem. You’re their boss. Most people don’t want to say the wrong thing or sound critical of the person they report to, so they take the safe option. You walk away thinking all is well, when really you’ve learned nothing.

I share how to ask for feedback at work in a way that gives people somewhere to start, a few specific questions you can use straight away, and the one golden rule that decides whether people keep being honest with you.

Because asking for feedback is only half the job. What you do with it is what earns you the next conversation.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why “How am I doing?” rarely gets you an honest answer
• How the power dynamic between you and your team shapes the feedback you hear
• How to ask for feedback by focusing on one or two specific areas
• Three practical questions to ask for feedback at work that people can actually answer
• The golden rule for keeping honest feedback coming
• A simple one-to-one experiment to try this week

Ben’s Key Takeaways

If you want honest feedback, make it easy for people to give it. Vague questions get vague answers. Pick one or two areas where you genuinely want feedback, and ask about those.

A question like “Would you like more or less direction from me on your day-to-day tasks?” gives people somewhere to start, and gives you something you can act on. Over time, feedback stops being a big event and becomes a normal part of how you work together.

Then act on it or acknowledge it. That doesn’t mean doing everything you’re asked. Sometimes the honest answer is, “I can’t change that, and here’s why.” What matters is that people can see they’ve been heard. If nothing changes, or you get defensive, they’ll stop telling you.

A final thought:

In your next one-to-one, ask for one specific piece of feedback on how you could serve that person better. Then listen, say thank you, and let them see what you do with it.

Want to learn more about how to be a leader?

Enrolment is now open for the January 2027 cohort of my ‘Leader in Me’ programme.

If you’re ready to:

• Build confidence and capability as a leader
• Break free from firefighting and become more proactive
• Learn how to inspire your team and deliver results…

Learn more and secure your place on the programme here.

“I want to talk to you about your timekeeping. You’re always coming in late at the moment.”

If someone said that to you, what would your first reaction be?

For most of us, it’s something like: “What do you mean, always? That’s not fair.” And just like that, the conversation has gone sideways.

In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I build on the previous episode about sharing feedback; if you’ve not seen it, you can watch or listen here.

One of the biggest worries I hear from leaders and managers when they need to have a difficult conversation is: what if they argue back? What if they get defensive or emotional?

Very often, we trigger that reaction ourselves. Not through what we say, but through how vague we are when we say it.

I explain how to have a difficult conversation without putting the other person on the defensive, what specific feedback looks like in practice, and why not having a specific example might tell you something important about the feedback itself.

Because vague feedback might feel easier to give. But specific feedback is far easier to receive.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why vague feedback triggers a defensive reaction
• How words like “always”, “never” and “a bit” pull a difficult conversation away from the behaviour
• What specific, observable feedback sounds like, with a practical example
• Why opening with a question rather than a verdict changes the whole conversation
• What to do when you don’t have a specific example to point to
• A simple way to prepare before you have your next difficult conversation

Ben’s Key Takeaways

When feedback is vague, people push back on the words that feel unfair or exaggerated. Before you know it, you’re no longer talking about the behaviour. You’re debating whether your description is accurate.

Being specific does two things.

It reduces the chance of a defensive reaction, because you’re describing what you’ve seen rather than passing judgement.

And it gives the person something they can actually work with. “Always late” is hard to do anything with. “Thursdays and Fridays” opens up a real conversation about what might have changed, and how you can help. That’s often what turns a difficult conversation into a useful one.

If you can’t point to a specific example, stop and ask yourself whether the feedback is valid. Is it based on what you’ve actually seen, or on an impression, a feeling, or something you’ve heard second-hand? If it’s the latter, hold off. Notice, observe, and come back when you can.

Before your next difficult conversation, write down one specific example. What happened, when, and how often. If you can’t, that tells you something too.

A final thought:

Vague feedback might feel easier to give. Specific feedback is far easier to receive.

Missed the last episode?

Listen to episode 19 here:

Want to learn more about how to be a leader?

The next cohort of my ‘Leader in Me’ programme starts in January 2027. Places are limited, and previous cohorts have filled quickly.

If you’re ready to:

• Build confidence and capability as a leader
• Break free from firefighting and become more proactive
• Learn how to inspire your team and deliver results…

Whether you’re looking to develop yourself, or you’re in HR or running a business and want to support someone in your team, now is a good time to act.

Learn more and secure a place on the programme for yourself or people in your organisation here.

In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I want to pick up somewhere most conversations about feedback stop: the moment after someone's taken it on board and actually improved.

I was coaching a senior leader recently. She had a team member whose performance wasn't where it needed to be. She'd tried giving feedback before, nothing really changed, and she'd been putting off having the conversation again. Sound familiar?

We talked through how to approach it. She had the conversation. And when we next caught up, she told me it had gone well; the person's performance had genuinely improved.

But here's the bit I want to focus on, because it's the part most leaders skip.

I challenged her to go further: to accentuate the progress, reaffirm what the person was now doing well, and actively look for the chance to ‘catch them doing things right.’

As leaders, we're naturally wired to focus on what's wrong. That's most of the job: spotting the gap and closing it. Which means it's easy to miss what's going well, especially straight after a difficult conversation.

So put yourself in the employee's shoes for a second. You've been told something isn't good enough. You've taken it on board. You've worked hard to change it. And your boss says... nothing. Or a cursory “thanks.”

What's that likely to do to your motivation? For a lot of people, it's “I did what you asked, and I got zero recognition for it.” That's not a leader building trust. That's a leader quietly undoing the progress they just fought to get.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why a feedback conversation can stall even after it's gone well
• The habit that quietly undoes the progress you've just fought to get
• Why leaders are wired to spot problems rather than progress
• How to reinforce change so it actually sticks
• The one specific thing to do this week when someone acts on feedback you've given them

Ben's Key Takeaway

Most of leadership is spotting the gap and closing it, so it's natural that we're better at noticing what's wrong than what's going right. But if someone acts on feedback you've given them and hears nothing back, you haven't just missed a moment. You've undone some of the trust that feedback conversation built in the first place.

So here's the one thing to do this week: the next time someone acts on feedback you've given them, tell them exactly what you've noticed. Not a generic “well done”, the specific thing they're now doing differently.

A final thought:

Catch them doing it right. That's what makes the change stick.

Want to learn more about how to be a leader?

The expression of interest form is open for the 2027 cohort of my ‘Leader in Me’ programme.

If you're ready to:

• Build confidence and capability as a leader
• Break free from firefighting and become more proactive
• Learn how to inspire your team and deliver results…

Learn more and register your interest here.

If you've ever wondered how to run effective meetings when everyone in the room seems to work differently, this episode is for you.

Some people get energy from a meeting the moment it starts. Ideas come out as they talk, and the room moves with them.

Others need quiet beforehand just to get their thinking straight, and being put on the spot leaves them scrambling to catch up.

In the last episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I talked about internal versus external processing (thinking), and why quiet people in meetings are often contributing more than it looks like on the surface.

This episode builds on that. Because once you understand the difference, you can actually use it, not just to manage yourself better, but to run effective meetings that work for everyone in the room.

External processors think out loud.

Internal processors think first, then speak.

Neither is better, but each one struggles in a different type of meeting, and I share a story from early in my consultancy career about working alongside someone who processes information in the opposite way to me, and what that taught me about running effective meetings that give people the room they need to think.

In this episode, you will learn how to run effective meetings, including:

• The difference between internal and external processors, and why neither approach is better
• Why meetings sprung on people with no agenda or pre-read undermine meeting effectiveness for internal processors
• What internal processors can do to give themselves thinking time before a meeting starts
• Why external processors are genuinely useful for generating ideas, and what they're doing for everyone else while they talk
• A practical way to think about who needs the pre-read and who needs the room, so you can run more effective meetings whatever the mix of personalities

Ben's Key Takeaway

At its heart, this episode is about how to run effective meetings when the people in the room process information differently.

We tend to run meetings as if everyone thinks the same way, but they don't.

External processors think by talking, and having them in the room early is genuinely useful, they generate energy and momentum, and while they're talking, they're buying thinking time for everyone else too.

Internal processors need the opposite. They think first, then speak, and a meeting with no agenda and no warning puts them on the back foot before it's even started. Giving them the outcome, the agenda, and anything to read in advance means they walk in having already done some of the thinking, and it makes a real difference to meeting effectiveness.

If you're running a meeting, think about who needs the pre-read and who needs the room.

And if you're in one, stop trying to think and speak like the person next to you. Play to how you actually process information, not how everyone else seems to.

That's really what learning how to run effective meetings comes down to.

Want to learn more about how to be a leader?

Learning how to run effective meetings is exactly the kind of practical skill we work on inside my 'Leader in Me' programme. The dates for the 2027 cohort are now open, starting in January. There are just 22 places, and the last two cohorts sold out within four weeks.

If you're ready to:

• Build confidence and capability as a leader
• Break free from firefighting and become more proactive
• Learn how to inspire your team and deliver results…

Find out more and secure your place on the programme here.

How to Be Heard in Meetings as an Internal Thinker

Have you ever left a meeting thinking, I didn't say enough?

Maybe everyone else seemed to be talking, and you sat there processing, listening, staying fairly quiet.

If that's you, this episode is about how to be heard in meetings, even if you're not the type who talks the most.

In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I look at why quiet, internal thinkers often add more value than it seems, and what to do about it if you want people to actually notice.

In my coaching and leadership workshops, I hear this all the time from people who process internally rather than externally. They worry that the people who speak up a lot in meetings are the ones getting ahead, the ones with their boss's ear.

So, here's a question worth asking: Are they actually getting ahead? Or does it just look that way?

There's a difference between talking a lot and adding value.

Once you understand which type of processor you are, you can work out how to speak more in meetings without changing who you are.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why internal and external processors approach meetings so differently
• Why it's easy to mistake volume for value in a meeting
• A simple approach for how to be heard in meetings without dominating the conversation
• A practical way to speak more in meetings, even if it doesn't come naturally to you
• How consistently applying this approach changes the way people see you

Ben's Key Takeaway

As leaders, it's easy to assume the loudest people in the room are the most valuable, but that's rarely the full picture.

Internal processors think before they speak, and that's not a weakness, it's just a different way of working.

If you're someone who processes internally, learning how to be heard in meetings doesn't mean forcing yourself to talk more for the sake of it. It means allowing others to speak, listening properly, and then pulling the discussion together at the right moment.

That's also how to speak more in meetings without feeling like you're competing for airtime.

Try something like: "If I may, I've been listening carefully to what everyone's said. Here's what I've heard, and here's what I think."

Do that consistently, and you won't need to fight to be heard.

People will start asking for your view sooner, because what you do say carries weight. Not because you spoke the most, but because what you said mattered.

Want to learn more about how to be a leader?

Places are now open for the 2027 cohort of my 'Leader in Me' programme, starting in January. There are just 22 places, and the last two cohorts sold out within four weeks.

If you're ready to:

• Build confidence and capability as a leader
• Break free from firefighting and become more proactive
• Learn how to inspire your team and deliver results…

Find out more and secure your place on the programme here.

Leadership Availability vs Productivity

If you've ever promised yourself you'd switch your phone off for an hour, only to find your hand reaching for it ten minutes later, this episode is for you.

In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I explore why being unavailable, something most leaders find genuinely uncomfortable, might be one of the most useful things you can do for your team.

We've all had the moment where we picture switching off and our brain goes straight to the risk. What if my boss needs me? What if my team hits a problem and can't reach me? That fear is real. But it's only looking at one side of the equation.

Because there's an upside to being unavailable that goes well beyond you getting your own work done. Without meaning to, a lot of us have trained our teams to come straight to us the moment a problem arises, which makes us the bottleneck and keeps us constantly interrupted. When you're genuinely not reachable, your team has to work things out for themselves.

I share why that pattern needs breaking, and a simple experiment you can run this week to find out what actually happens when you switch off properly.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why it takes so long to mentally refocus after a distraction, and what that costs your day
• How constant availability can quietly train your team to stop thinking for themselves
• The two hidden costs of always being the one with the answer
• Why short periods of genuine unavailability can make your team more resourceful
• A simple experiment to test what happens when you properly switch off for an hour

Ben's Key Takeaway

Being unavailable isn't neglecting your team, it's giving them the chance to think for themselves.

Without realising it, many of us train our teams the way Pavlov trained his dogs: problem arises, come to the boss, get the answer. That pattern makes us the bottleneck in our own team and keeps us constantly interrupted.

If you want your people to think for themselves, that pattern has to be broken somewhere, and your unavailability can be exactly where it breaks. Pick one block of time this week, even just sixty minutes, and go properly unavailable. Notice what breaks. It's probably less than you think. And notice what your team works out without you.

If you found this useful, please hit follow or subscribe wherever you're watching or listening.

Over the next few weeks, a lot of us will be packing the work bag for the last time before heading off on holiday. And if you're a leader, there's a good chance you'll be carrying a quiet, nagging worry alongside the suncream and the out-of-office: what's going to happen while I'm gone?

In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I explore why how your team performs in your absence tells you more about your leadership than almost anything they do while you're stood watching.

I take you back to my second tour of Iraq, when a period of leave landed me away from my team during the busiest, most volatile stretch of the entire deployment. What I found when I got back taught me something I still talk about today: one of the real tests of your leadership isn't how things run when you're in the room. It's how they run when you're not.

A lot of leaders read a smooth-running team the wrong way. When things tick along fine without them, it can feel uncomfortable - almost like a sign they're not needed. It's the opposite. A team that performs well in your absence is a sign you've trained, developed and supported them well enough that they don't depend on you being there.

I share a few simple, practical things you can do now to set your team up to succeed while you're away, so you can actually switch off on holiday - and come back to find things went brilliantly without you.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why how your team performs in your absence is one of the clearest tests of your leadership
• Why a smoothly running team while you're away is a sign of strength, not a threat
• The warning sign to watch for if things fall apart the moment you step back
• Practical steps to prepare your team before you go on leave
• How to actually switch off on holiday without worrying about work

Ben's Key Takeaway

It's easy to read a smooth-running team the wrong way while you're on leave, and feel like you're surplus to requirements. But that's backwards.

A team that thrives in your absence hasn't happened by accident. It's the result of work you've done well before you left: delegating clearly, making priorities visible, and making sure people know who to turn to when you're not there.

Scan ahead, start that work now, and you'll come back from holiday to find your team did just fine without you - because you set them up to.

Want to learn more about how to be a leader?

The expression of interest form is now open for the next cohort of my 'Leader in Me' programme.

If you're ready to:

• Build confidence and capability as a leader
• Break free from firefighting and become more proactive
• Learn how to inspire your team and deliver results…

Find out more here.

Most leaders I work with know they should delegate more. They say it regularly. And yet, somehow, the same decisions, meetings, and projects stay on their plate.

In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I explore why effective delegation is so difficult - not in theory, but in practice - and introduce a simple process to help you let go of the right things with more confidence.

It turns out the problem isn't knowledge. Most leaders understand delegation well enough. What gets in the way is something much more human; worry. Worry that things will go wrong, that something will get missed, or that they'll be left accountable for a result they couldn't control.

There's a neuroscience reason for that too. Our brains are wired to give more weight to what might go wrong than to what might go right. Psychologists call it negativity bias, and it means that when you ask yourself "should I delegate this?", your brain is already working against you.

I share a tool I developed to counter exactly that, the Momentum Process, which reframes the way you assess risk so you can make clearer, more confident decisions about what to hand over and what to hold.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why leaders who know how to delegate still struggle to actually do it
• How negativity bias quietly keeps you stuck in the detail
• Why starting with the upside changes how you assess risk
• The four-step Momentum Process for making confident delegation decisions
• Why most risks are smaller and more recoverable than they feel in the moment

Ben's Key Takeaway

The leaders who struggle most with effective delegation aren't failing because they don't care. They're struggling because they care too much, and their brain is trying to protect the people and results they feel responsible for.

That's not a flaw. That's leadership.

But the team can't grow if we never let go. And you can't lead at the level you're capable of if you're still doing the job you used to do.

The Momentum Process won't make the risk disappear. What it does is help you see it clearly, rather than just feel it. And once you can see it, you can manage it.

Want the Momentum Process worksheet?

Click here to get it right now.

High Performance Teams Don't Just Work Hard - They Reset

Think about the last big project your team completed. What happened the moment it was done?

My guess is - not much. A brief exhale, perhaps a quick well done in the next team meeting, and then straight into the next thing. Because there’s always a next thing.

In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I explore one of the most common patterns I see when working with teams: near-constant forward motion, with no real pause until the end of the year. Eleven months of pushing, and a few brief moments of reflection. That’s not a rhythm, it’s survival.

Drawing on a lesson from my first 86-mile ultramarathon, I share why the halfway reset wasn’t just useful, it was essential. And why the same principle applies directly to how you lead your team.

Because without a deliberate mid-stretch pause, there’s just constant effort with no acknowledgement of progress, no chance to learn, and no real reset before the next chapter begins.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why most teams only ever reset once a year, and why that’s not enough
• What an 86-mile ultramarathon taught me about breaking a big challenge into manageable chapters
• Why acknowledging progress matters as much as making it
• Three simple questions that can give your team clarity, energy, and renewed focus
• How to find your team’s next halfway point, and what to do with it

Ben’s Key Takeaway

The best teams I’ve been part of and worked with share one thing in common on this topic. They prioritise these reset and review meetings, and they don’t allow them to be bumped.

A proper team reset doesn’t need to be a full day off-site or a formal retrospective. But it does need to be deliberate.

Three questions are enough:

What have we achieved?

What have we learned that we don’t want to carry forward?

What’s been working well that we can do more of?

Done well, that conversation takes an hour. And what it gives back - in clarity, energy, and connection - is worth every minute invested.

So here’s the question to take away: when is your team’s next halfway point?

Not the end of the financial year. Not the Christmas break.

The next natural pause in the work you’re doing right now.

Find it, put it in the diary, and plan how you’ll use the time.

Interested in The Leader in Me?

If this episode resonated, it might be a sign that you - or someone in your team - would benefit from some proper investment in leadership development.

The Leader in Me is my practical, cohort-based leadership programme for managers who want to build real confidence, sharpen their skills, and lead their teams more effectively. No fads, no role play. Just tools and frameworks that actually work.

If you’re ready to:

• Build confidence and capability as a leader
• Break free from firefighting and become more proactive
• Learn how to inspire your team and deliver results…

It’s open to individuals, and if you’re in HR or run a business, you’re welcome to register interest on behalf of colleagues too.

Register your interest for the next cohort here.

Why the Best Leaders Treat Themselves Like Elite Athletes

If you’ve ever made it to a holiday only to spend the first two days flat on your back with a cold, this episode is for you.

That pattern is more common than we think. And it isn’t just bad luck. It’s a signal worth paying attention to.

In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, recorded in the Brecon Beacons, I explore one of the most overlooked principles in sustainable leadership: the relationship between hard work and deliberate recovery.

Drawing on the work of Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, whose research into elite athletes fundamentally changed how we understand human performance, I make the case that the real enemy of high performance isn’t effort. It’s the absence of recovery.

For most leaders, there’s no planned recovery. One demanding period simply rolls into the next. But without deliberate rest and reset, the hard stretches eventually start costing far more than they deliver - not just to you, but to the people around you who deserve the best of you, not what’s left.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why getting ill on holiday is a signal, not a coincidence
• What elite athletes do differently, and how the principle translates directly into leadership
• Why pushing hard only works when you build deliberate recovery around it
• A practical question to help you audit the next three months of your working life
• How to identify your hard stretch, protect genuine recovery time, and stay in the game for the long run

Ben’s Key Takeaway

Sustainable high performance isn’t about how much you can endure. It’s about how well you can recover.

Elite performers don’t just work harder than everyone else. They recover better. They build deliberate cycles of stress and recovery, and it’s that rhythm, repeated over time, that builds real capacity.

Most leaders plan the hard stretch. Very few plan what comes after it.

Look at the next three months. Identify where you’re genuinely pushing. Then decide, right now, when it ends, and what recovery looks like on the other side.

Work hard. And recover just as deliberately. That’s not a sign of weakness. That’s how you lead well over the long run.

Interested in The Leader in Me?

If this episode resonated, it might be a sign that you - or someone in your team - would benefit from some proper investment in leadership development.

The Leader in Me is my practical, cohort-based leadership programme for managers who want to build real confidence, sharpen their skills, and lead their teams more effectively. No fads, no role play. Just tools and frameworks that actually work.

If you’re ready to:

• Build confidence and capability as a leader
• Break free from firefighting and become more proactive
• Learn how to inspire your team and deliver results…

It’s open to individuals, and if you’re in HR or run a business, you’re welcome to register interest on behalf of colleagues too.

Register your interest for the next cohort here.