How leaders ask for feedback that drives growth
Do you know how to ask for feedback in a way that actually moves your leadership forward?
Don’t wait for reviews.
Don’t hope someone notices your growth.
Don’t assume silence means “you’re doing fine.”
You have to ask for it!
When you learn how to ask for feedback as a leader, you’re not just collecting opinions, you’re building a personal feedback culture around you. This is part of your leadership mindset. For multicultural women leaders especially, asking for feedback is a way to claim space, gather real data about your impact, and shape your professional growth on purpose.
The goal is not to ask for feedback randomly. You are building effective feedback techniques that support leadership growth, performance improvement strategies, and long-term career advancement strategies. When you’re clear about what you want to learn, you move beyond generic praise and into insight that can actually shift your high-impact leadership behaviors.
As we head into 2026, the leaders who rise will be the ones who treat feedback as a personal strategy level-up. We can be nervous about getting feedback, but I want to encourage you: Feedback is a powerful tool, and you can steer these conversations! You can be intentional about what you ask for, who you ask, and how you use what you hear.
This is where so many women miss an opportunity. They ask for broad feedback, receive unhelpful or misaligned input… and then overcorrect or get reactive. What YOU want is feedback that strengthens your advocacy and signals your leadership trajectory.
So if you’ve ever wondered, “What is a simple feedback framework I can actually use in real conversations?”, you’re not alone. Many leaders never get taught feedback best practices, leadership evaluation methods, or how to translate feedback into a concrete skill development plan. Instead, they collect scattered input that is hard to act on.
The good news: you can treat these feedback conversations as part of your leadership development, your professional visibility, and your broader career planning. When you approach them with a growth mindset for leaders and a clear structure, feedback becomes a form of leadership coaching you’re inviting into your world, not something that’s happening to you.
Here’s the structure I taught in one of my recent workshops, sharing so you can apply it to your end-of-year reviews, mentor conversations, and 2026 planning. I hope it gets you eager to get feedback!
Step 1: Name the skill you want to highlight
Before you ask anyone for anything, get grounded. What skills are you intentionally developing right now? Maybe you’ve been working on:
Clearer communication
More visible influence
Stronger cross-team collaboration
Strategic thinking
Decision-making in ambiguity
But pick one.
When you enter a feedback conversation with a clear sense of the skill you want feedback on, you steer the discussion. You’re not asking someone to critique your entire leadership identity (yikes), just one focused part of it. That’s much more manageable.
What skill will matter most for the roles and opportunities I want in 2026?
Step 2: Choose the right person to ask
You’re not limited to getting feedback only from your manager. Ask the person whose vantage point actually supports your growth arc and you’ll get some great insights!
Talk to…
Your manager if the skill connects to visibility, influence, or readiness for bigger responsibility.
A peer if the skill shows up in day-to-day collaboration.
A team member if the skill relates to clarity, support, or alignment.
A skip-level or mentor if the skill is strategic or future-focused.
Who consistently sees me in situations where this skill matters?
Step 3: Choose the right moment (timing matters!)
Feedback hits differently depending on timing. My favorite moments to ask for feedback:
After a big meeting or presentation
After a cross-team collaboration where stakes were higher
During a standing 1:1 when you both have capacity
After you tried something new and want to test whether it landed
Before annual reviews (think about shaping perception, vs. reacting to it)
When will this person have enough context and enough mental space to give a thoughtful answer?
Step 4: Frame the request so it supports your leadership story
This is the part most of us just don’t know to do! Ask vague questions, get vague answers. And that’s just not the kind of input you need.
Here are a couple ready-to-use prompts for you:
To a manager:
“I’m working on strengthening my influence across teams. Thinking about the last few months, what’s one moment where you saw that skill show up well. What’s one moment where I could have had more impact?”To a peer:
“I’m focusing on clearer communication in collaborative work. From your perspective, where does that show up strongest for me, and where could I sharpen it?”To your team:
“I want to make expectations easier to follow. What’s one adjustment I could make this quarter that would help you move faster?”
These questions do two things at once:
Signal the skill you want to be known for.
Invite feedback that points in that direction.
Step 5: Interpret feedback without losing yourself
Once you receive feedback, filter it:
Does it align with the skill I’m developing?
Is this about my style / approach or my impact?
Is this something I want to carry into 2026?
What I’m going to say next is going to feel real for multicultural women leaders: Don’t shapeshift for everyone. Take what serves your growth, leave what doesn’t, and stay anchored in the direction YOU want to go.
Step 6: Turn insight into visible action
Truth drop: Growth only becomes leadership when it becomes observable.
Three simple moves:
Name your intention out loud.
“Here’s the skill I’m dialing in this quarter…”Tell people what to watch for.
This shapes how they interpret your progress.Show the shift consistently.
Small adjustments, repeated over weeks, change how people perceive your leadership.
Your action steps:
This week: Make a list of the specific skills or areas you want to get feedback on, and identify who you’ll ask about each.
Before the end of the year: Ask one person before for targeted feedback using the four-part framework (what skill, who, when, how).
Through 2026: Establish a quarterly feedback rhythm with people who can speak to your leadership growth from different angles.
As you step into these conversations, remember this: you are not asking for permission to grow, you’re gathering the data you need to rise. You’re the one steering your story. You’re the one shaping what 2026 looks like. And I’m cheering for you every step of the way.
Keep going!
