Action Step: Upward Reviews – Building Cultures of Accountability, Trust & Continuous Improvement
DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
Organizations spend significant time evaluating employee performance, yet many overlook one of the most powerful sources of leadership insight: the people being led.
Upward reviews create a structured opportunity for employees to provide feedback to managers, leaders, and other senior professionals about their leadership, communication, delegation, coaching, and relationship-building practices. Done well, upward reviews are a reflection of an organization’s commitment to accountability, trust, and continuous improvement.
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Three Conditions That Make Upward Reviews Successful
- Psychological Safety:
Employees must trust that they can provide honest feedback without fear of retaliation or damage to their careers. If employees believe their feedback can be traced back to them, they are less likely to engage honestly.
Psychological safety doesn’t happen automatically because a survey is anonymous. It’s built through consistent communication, transparency about the process, and leadership behaviors that demonstrate feedback is welcomed.
The strongest safeguard is the design of the process. Rather than asking people to merely trust that the upward review process protects their anonymity, show them how the process itself actually works. Walk them through each stage, laying out the process from start to finish, including what the people running the process can see and what the final report looks like. When employees understand how the process actually works, they can feel more comfortable sharing their authentic feedback…
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