Leveraging the Power of Feedback

Creating a Culture for Growth

Feedback is an essential component of personal and professional growth. Over the last eighteen months, I have been working with leaders at all levels across the UK to refine their approach to feedback. In school and college settings, the way feedback is given and received plays a crucial role in shaping teacher and leader development. Moreover, effective feedback directly influences how valued staff feel—both personally and professionally—impacting their job satisfaction and overall well-being.

The manner in which feedback is shared and received significantly affects a school or college’s culture and its ability to adapt in an ever-changing educational landscape.

Four Feedback Quadrants

Feedback culture can typically be categorized into four distinct quadrants, each shaping the potential for individual, team, and institutional growth. These quadrants influence team dynamics, teacher effectiveness, and student learning outcomes.

1. Zone of ‘Us’

A collaborative environment where honest feedback is welcomed, received constructively, and used for growth. This fosters an open, responsive culture where concerns can be shared, knowing they will be met with openness and a commitment to improvement.

2. Zone of Limitation

A restrictive space where feedback is scarce, limiting development opportunities. Those eager to grow may find themselves frustrated if they seek meaningful feedback but struggle to obtain it.

3. Zone of Deafness

An environment where some individuals readily offer feedback, but others resist or externalize the causes of challenges. This can lead to stagnation and frustration, as those offering feedback feel unheard. If unresolved, this can lead to disengagement and movement into the ‘Zone of Stuckness.’

4. Zone of Stuckness

A culture where ineffective feedback mechanisms prevent progress. Without clear, open communication, teams become stagnant, morale drops, and professional growth is hindered.

The zone in which a team or individual operates directly affects their ability to grow. Leaders must be intentional in maintaining a culture that nurtures feedback, as slipping out of the ‘Zone of Us’ is always a risk if not deliberately sustained.

Reflection Questions

To what extent do you agree with the following statement; ‘the extent to which zone we work in, can often be the result of cultural norms that have evolved naturally, not deliberately curated.’?
Which relationships are in the ’Zone of Us’? What benefits do you hear and see as a result?
What is the impact on well-being (including attendance, retention) depending upon which zone we are in?
One leader reflected that without deliberate, ongoing maintenance, there’s a risk of slipping out of ‘Zone of Us’. To what extent does this resonate with you?

Foundations for Effective Feedback Culture

Through my work with thousands of teachers and leaders, common barriers to effective feedback consistently emerge. Remarkably, 95% of these barriers are avoidable with the right foundations in place.

1. Clarity in Feedback: The ‘Why, How, and What’

Effective feedback relies on shared clarity. Without a clear purpose and agreed-upon ground rules, feedback can be shaped by past experiences and fears, leading to reluctance and misunderstanding. Establishing clarity requires deep discussion around:

Why? – Understanding the purpose of feedback in professional growth and the importance of prioritising time and resources to ensure this important dialogue can take place.
How? – Developing strategies for giving and receiving feedback effectively.
What? – Identifying key focus areas for meaningful discussions.

Creating a shared language around feedback fosters psychological safety and strengthens engagement. Many teams I have worked with have found it valuable to establish an agreed-upon feedback protocol, incorporating:

Deep Dialogue – Meaningful, timely conversations about performance and improvement.
Balanced Judgement – Recognizing strengths and development over time while identifying areas for future growth.
‘Plus One’ Mentality – Focusing on incremental development rather than an overwhelming critique that makes development seem overwhelming.
A ‘Cathedral Building’ Mindset – Seeing feedback as an integral part of creating an inspiring professional community.

I’ve found that teams that embed clear feedback protocols experience improved clarity, trust, and engagement in the process.

2.Building shared Clarity about ‘What makes beautiful?’

A shared understanding of high performance is essential for meaningful feedback. When expectations are unclear, feedback lacks precision, leading to inconsistent or ineffective guidance. Without an agreed-upon definition of excellence, two key issues arise:

Individuals develop personal, private standards and trust their own judgment over external feedback.
Feedback conversations become difficult, with phrases like “We’ll have to agree to disagree” or “This way works for me” preventing constructive dialogue.

To ensure feedback is impactful, teams must align on what high performance looks like in key areas of focus.

3. Relational Trust

Relational trust is critical for an effective feedback culture. As one teacher confided, “The extent to which I’m open to listening to and acting on feedback depends on who’s giving it.” Low relational trust can lead individuals to question:

The motive behind the feedback
How the feedback will be given/received
The accuracy of the feedback
The credibility of the feedback giver

Trust is built over time through everyday actions that demonstrate personal and professional regard. I have seen teams rebuild trust even after significant breakdowns—but doing so requires deliberate effort and sustained leadership focus.

4. Nurturing Curiosity

Curiosity fuels rich feedback discussions. However, in busy school environments, staff often work at full capacity, leaving little room for reflection. Carving out time to slow down and reflect prevents blind spots and enhances learning. As R.D. Laing powerfully states:

“The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.”

Encouraging slow, reflective thinking can help teams to, for example:

Identify why an approach worked and how it can be replicated
Distinguish between root causes and surface-level symptoms
Evaluate whether they are seeing the full picture
Determine whether an issue is isolated or systemic
Recognize how unconscious bias may influence perceptions

Curiosity can be enhanced through:

CPD sessions that involve deep discussions about practice and impact (I wrote about an example of this happening here)
Cross-referencing feedback with multiple sources for validation
Sharing and observing best practices across classrooms
Learning from high-performing schools in similar contexts

Reflective Questions

To what extent is feedback within your team truthful, constructive, and valued?
How do the four feedback quadrants apply to your team or school? Where do limitations, deafness, or stuckness exist?
What actions can you take to ensure your team remains in the ‘Zone of Us’?
How well-defined is your team’s shared understanding of ‘what makes beautiful’? How does this impact feedback quality?
What steps could you take to strengthen relational trust in your team/school to improve openness to feedback?
How can you foster curiosity within your team/school to deepen reflective feedback discussions?

Creating a culture of effective feedback requires intention, clarity, and trust. By deliberately nurturing these foundations, school leaders can foster an environment where feedback is valued, growth is continuous, and teams thrive.