Over the last 17 years, I’ve heard many leaders proudly announce that they are “building a strong feedback culture.” More to the point, it was even part of my job description to shape cultures like that in several startups. It sounds impressive, and HR Leaders love to share their achievements and progress in designing feedback loops, feedback channels, and boats, along with the amount of feedback they have collected.
But every solution has to meet its problem and solve it. Most companies don’t have a feedback problem – they have a safety problem. Feedback feels dangerous when trust in the team is low, when there are consequences for negative feedback you’ve shared, and when leaders treat uncomfortable truths as a personal attack rather than a growth opportunity. And no amount of tools, surveys, or HR rituals can fix that.
Let me give you two real examples from my career:
Company A: The feedback wonderland
There were tools for everything.
You could provide feedback on a project, a strategy meeting, or even your latest Zoom call. Feedback flowed up, down, and sideways. Impressive on the surface, outstanding in the number of feedback channels, the number of feedback points per month, and the structured approach.
But here’s the catch:
Whenever critical feedback came in, leaders didn’t acknowledge the insights it provided. Instead, they became curious about who dared to give negative feedback. And it was not curiosity or care for those who might not be happy or engaged, but rather defensiveness and vindictiveness.
Guess what happened next?
People learned to adapt. They started shaping feedback into safe, more pleasant, and more career-protecting language. Honesty disappeared. The feedback culture looked perfect on paper…but was completely false in reality.
Company B: Fewer tools & more truth
In this company, feedback wasn’t a system – it was a behavior and became a part of the unspoken culture. Feedback was shared in meetings, in the hallway, or during 1:1. It could be written or verbal, and was not delivered with fancy tools.
But it had a couple of rules:
- Be honest about what you think: you liked the discussion => share your thoughts. You disagree with the solution your boss offers => share your thoughts.
- Be respectful to everyone, inside and outside the team.
- Say it directly to the person involved before sharing it with anyone else.
- Share the feedback as close to the moment in question as possible.
- If you disagree, it is OK to bring an opposing opinion, but take ownership of that and propose alternative solutions.
Enforced? Not really. Shaped via tools and channels? No. Were there metrics on the volume of feedback HR collected? No.
Their engagement survey scores were good, but not perfect. People had an opportunity and the right culture to voice their frustrations, and that’s precisely why it worked for this team. In 3 years, I had the chance to witness their growth: they scaled 5x in the core business, launched two new products, and retained the leaders they started with. Maybe those leaders were at times frustrated, maybe at times exhausted by the fast-paced startup work, but they were heard and acknowledged. And what they said kept them through the pains of a growth phase is seeing their business grow, seeing their people succeed, and feeling like they themselves transformed together with it. What about the problems and frustrations they fought with? None of them became a critical blocker because they could call an “all hands on deck” meeting at any time something significant happened. No one took it too personally. If there is a problem, it needs to be solved.
My most significant learnings from this team:
- The real trust doesn’t eliminate imperfections – it allows them to surface. Problems will occur, it’s life. But only after you acknowledge a problem honestly can you move to the next stage and solve it well.
- A healthy team doesn’t pretend everything is great. A healthy team can handle the truth.
The real issue isn’t feedback
Most organizations try to improve the culture by adding more feedback forms, communication channels, and anonymous surveys. But people don’t need more ways to speak. They need to feel safe enough to tell the truth, and then see that it was meaningful enough to share their thoughts and opinions, because it mattered and it shifted things.
This is one of the most impactful leadership functions: building a culture designed for growth.
In my C.O.A.C.H. Framework, healthy feedback rests on:
- Curiosity – Do we genuinely want to understand what’s going on? When people don’t tell us, do we ask proactively with an open heart and mind?
- Openness – Can we hear something we don’t like without becoming defensive?
- Awareness – Are we conscious of how our reactions shape what others tell us? Can we read the room with the context unspoken, including our own feelings?
- Commitment – Do we follow through on what we hear, even when it’s uncomfortable?
- Help – Do we offer support that turns feedback into progress?
When these five elements exist, feedback becomes a “blood in our veins” or the “air in our lungs” – something so vital and natural, a part of our culture. When they don’t, feedback becomes a risk and a threat to our leaders’ egos.
The Takeaway
The companies that brag about a feedback culture often confuse volume, channels, and form with truth, transparency, and a growth culture.
An authentic culture of feedback is not measured by how much feedback we collect, but by how much we act upon it and how safe people feel telling us the uncomfortable truth.
Perfect surveys don’t mean you have a strong culture. They often mean your people are too scared to be honest.
Don’t optimize for more feedback. Optimize for more safety.
That’s where growth begins and happens.
I am Olyana, an executive and team coach. I help ambitious professionals, executives, and teams turn potential into performance. With 17+ years in fast-growing tech startups, I’ve learned that business success is not just about strategy – it’s about leaders who know how to think, feel, and act with intention. I’ve coached leaders, reshaped team cultures, designed leadership systems, and launched my self-coaching methodology and the COACH Framework for Leaders, which empower people to build confidence through presence.
I help people understand who they are, what fuels them, and how to turn their strengths into impact. My approach combines neuroscience, practical tools, and deep systemic coaching to move leaders out of self-doubt to decisive action. From navigating conflicts to building cultures that people actually want to belong to. I help organizations grow from the inside out.
I’m driven by a simple belief: behind every business, there are humans – and when those humans thrive, everything else follows. If you want to build a career, culture, or company that reflects your values and unlocks real potential, let’s talk. My mission is to equip leaders with tools they can use for life, not just for the next quarter.