Your Team's Feedback Won't Make You a Better CEO

Imagine you’ve just received your 360 review from your team. Should you act on their feedback?

Maybe not.

Many CEOs share their team feedback report with me.

“Which feedback would you like to act on?” I ask.

“Well, all of it,” the CEO says.

“I see. Well, if you do that, it probably won’t make you a better CEO.” 

Allow me to explain.

Many CEOs believe the people who experience your leadership are the right people to make you a better leader.

However, this logic is flawed.

• Imagine a sports coach who decided not to do repetitive skill drills because the athletes found them boring.
• Imagine a doctor who decided not to perform an operation because the patient didn’t like pain.
• Imagine a therapist who decided to tell clients what to do because they asked for it.

While each of these professions will massively benefit from listening to their clients, uncovering blind spots, unintended impact, and areas to improve on, they shouldn’t take it all to heart.

In particular, it’s not their job to make their clients more comfortable if it means not doing their job well.

If you look at feedback CEOs receive from their teams, you see similar patterns:

• You need to give us more autonomy
• You create too much urgency
• Your goals are not realistic
• You need to be more empathetic

When I read this, I can feel that the feedback is coming from a place of discomfort… which is to be expected if you’re operating a fast-paced, high-growth company. 

However, while it’s worth reflecting on this type of feedback, if you follow it blindly, it’s likely to backfire.

• Giving every teammate full autonomy to hit their goals will lead to misalignment.
• Avoiding deadlines will lead to people clocking off at 5:30pm while your competitor steals your market share.
• Not setting impossible goals will lead to people choosing easy things to work on, rather than needle-movers.
• And while empathy might lead you to avoid making people uncomfortable, it can also lead you to putting off decisions. 

I’m not saying you shouldn’t take your team feedback seriously. 

There are lots of ways you need to improve. Things like:

• Communicating your expectations more clearly
• Repeating the vision and strategy
• Setting higher standards across your company
• Acting on low-performance
• Driving a sense of excitement and team spirit
• Making unpopular decisions with less delay
• Actually figuring out how to grow your company

Because making your team as comfortable as possible isn’t the goal. Growth is.

And unfortunately, growth and comfort are always at odds.

Related Reading

• Delegating Outcomes Won't Solve Your Problem
• How to Grow Without Venture Capital
• How Founders Lose Sight of What They Want
• Why Founders Struggle to Show Appreciation

Originally published on December 10, 2025.