Employee Survey and Leadership Feedback: Combine or Run Separately?

An employee survey and a leadership feedback ask the same people, often in the same year, and both lead to workshops with the same teams. Running them separately puts the organization through two field phases, two waves of communication and two follow-up processes. Combining them does more than save effort: the results belong together, because leadership is part of what employees experience in their work. This article shows what the combination looks like in practice, what needs to be settled beforehand, and in which cases a single instrument is the better choice.

How the combination works

From the employees’ point of view, it is one survey: one link, one questionnaire, one invitation. The questionnaire has two parts. The first part is the employee survey with its topics, such as collaboration, working conditions, information and change. The second part is the leadership feedback: statements about the behaviour of the direct line manager, which employees rate on the same scale. The leader additionally receives the leadership part in the first person as a self-rating.

One set of responses produces two reports. The team report of the employee survey shows the topic results per unit and in comparison with the organization. The leadership report shows how others see the leader, on request next to their self-image, with the dimensions, result lines and frequencies of a typical leadership feedback report. For divisions and the organization as a whole, aggregated reports are produced across both parts.

Technically, this requires an organizational structure in which every unit is assigned to its leader. That is needed for an employee survey anyway, because the reports are produced per unit. The assignment to the leader is added so that the leadership part ends up with the right person. The minimum number of responses for an analysis is set separately for each part: five responses per unit in the survey part, and usually three per leader in the leadership part in practice, because teams are often smaller. Both are agreed with the employee representatives beforehand and communicated to employees.

What needs to be settled beforehand

Four questions decide whether the combination succeeds.

The purpose of the leadership part

Leadership feedback within an employee survey serves leadership development, not performance appraisal. The leader receives their report first; the organization sees aggregated results. Anyone who wants to use leadership feedback for appraisal should run it separately and not burden the employee survey with that question.

Length of the questionnaire

Together, the two parts must not be longer than a good employee survey on its own. In practice, that means 30 to 40 statements for the employee survey topics and 20 to 30 for leadership, plus a few open questions. The leadership part therefore stays shorter than in a stand-alone leadership feedback; an example with 32 standard items is shown in the article on the leadership feedback questionnaire.

Involving employee representatives

The works council or staff council (the elected employee representation in German private-sector companies and public bodies respectively, which has co-determination rights over employee surveys), data protection and the equal opportunities officer must know that the survey includes a leadership part, who sees which reports and how anonymity is ensured. This belongs in the works agreement or service agreement before the first questionnaire is sent out.

Communication to employees

The invitation must state clearly that both are covered in one survey and what happens with each part. Anyone who only realizes while filling in the questionnaire that they are rating their own manager will answer more cautiously.

An example from practice

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) ran its employee survey and leadership feedback with us in a single round. The ministry’s reasoning: to prevent survey fatigue and to design an efficient follow-up process. The result is a leadership report and a team report from one survey, which a leader can discuss with their team in one workshop instead of in two separate rounds.

When the employee survey alone is the better choice

When the organization is surveying for the first time

A first employee survey builds trust: employees experience that anonymity holds and that the results lead to something. A leadership part in the first wave can strain that trust before it has been established. The second wave is a better time.

When the leadership structure is in flux

After a restructuring, or when many leadership positions have been newly filled, employees have not known their leader long enough to give a robust assessment. The employee survey then provides the picture of the general mood, and the leadership feedback follows once the reporting lines are stable.

When leadership is not the issue

If the focus is on working conditions, processes, strategy or a change initiative, a leadership part dilutes it. The employee survey then contains a short topic on “collaboration with my line manager”, and nothing more.

When leadership feedback alone is the better choice

When it is about developing specific leadership levels

A programme for new team leads or for senior management does not need a picture of the mood across the whole organization, but an in-depth picture for each leader.

When more perspectives are needed

Line managers and peers cannot be meaningfully included in an employee survey. A 270° or 360° feedback is a project of its own.

When the leadership questionnaire is meant to be comprehensive

Anyone who wants to look at leadership in eight dimensions with four items each plus an importance rating will exceed the scope of an employee survey.

Decision guide at a glance

Recommendation

If you are planning both in the same year, you should seriously consider combining them. It saves the organization a field phase, gives leaders a more complete picture and brings both sets of results into one follow-up process. The prerequisites are a clear development purpose, a disciplined questionnaire and communication that names both parts. How an employee survey with us works is described on our page about the employee survey with Survkit, and leadership feedback on the page about leadership feedback with Survkit.