Get some coaching from your staff

This article first appeared September 28, 2011.

It can be lonely at the top when it comes to performance reviews and as chief executive of a start-up you can find yourself isolated from your team when it comes to getting feedback on your performance.

There are various ways to approach this.

You might conduct anonymous surveys once a year, getting employees to comment on your performance in a process that has become known as the 360 degree review.

Or you might get your board, mentors or advisers to give you a performance review, based on how the company is running and what they’ve seen of you running it.

But in most cases those are annual or semi-annual feedback sessions at best.

For an inexperienced start-up entrepreneur it is a good idea to get more regular feedback or coaching from staff members.

You can do this in one of two ways.

You might have a trusted staff member who you can confide in and who feels he/she can talk honestly about your performance without fear of retribution.

Alternatively you might want to build a culture where you sit down with a handful of your top people regularly – say every quarter—to discuss the company’s performance and your own.

Either way the advice coming from below should be candid. And it must be listened to.

Get it done – today!