Stop waiting for applause, start asking for spears

​Nick Waterworth 🦘shared a LinkedIn post recently that I agreed with the moment I read it, and that captured almost exactly what I have found myself saying to clients over the past few weeks.

He described an unwritten rule from the Navy, and distilled it into a single line:stop waiting for applause, start asking for spears.

I love it because it turns the whole idea of feedback on its head. For most of our working lives we have treated feedback as something that happens to us. We wait to be told how we are doing, we brace ourselves for the review, and we quietly hope the verdict comes back kind.

The point Nick makes so well is that the people who grow fastest tend to do the opposite. They go looking for the hard stuff. They ask for the spear, the pointed and occasionally uncomfortable observation that actually moves them forward, rather than waiting around for the applause.

That reframe feels more relevant now than it ever has. We are surrounded by cheap validation, a world of likes, instant reactions and technology that will happily polish anything we produce and tell us it is wonderful. Approval has never been easier to come by, and precisely because of that, it has never meant less.

The rare and valuable thing in 2026 is not praise. It is someone who cares enough to tell you the truth, clearly and kindly, and early enough that you can still do something with it.

Why feedback matters more, not less

None of this is to suggest our appetite for feedback has faded. If anything, it has grown. The vast majority of us say we value feedback, and most people take more initiative once they have received it. It remains one of the most powerful tools we have for developing, both in our careers and as people.

The rise of 360 degree reviews made a point that still holds true, which is that it is not only feedback from above that counts. Understanding the impact we have on our peers, and on the people we lead, matters every bit as much.

The difficulty was never really the feedback itself. It was always the delivery.

Good feedback asks something of the person giving it. It asks us to prepare the ground, to create enough psychological safety that the other person feels supported rather than exposed, and to choose our moment with care. Those are not always the steps we take when we are busy, and we are all busy.

Above all, feedback needs to be timely. The longer we sit on something, particularly if it is difficult, the less use it is and the more it festers. Feedback was never meant to be saved up for once a year. It works best as a running conversation.

The generation that asked for this first

It is worth remembering who pushed us towards this in the first place. When Gen Z began arriving in our workplaces, a lot of leaders read their appetite for regular feedback as a lack of resilience, a sense that they could not take criticism and only wanted to hear the good news.

The evidence never really supported that. This is a generation that asked for feedback more often than any before it, and that, on the whole, approached it with a genuine growth mindset. What looked like fragility was actually an invitation. They were asking to be involved rather than simply told, and asking their leaders to care enough to explain the why.

Several years on, many of those same people are now managers themselves, and the way they once asked to be led has quietly become the way a lot of us lead.

That is the shift Nick's line captures so neatly. Asking for spears is no longer a generational quirk. It is simply how good professionals operate.

Feedback as a conversation, not a verdict

If there is one change worth making, it is to stop treating feedback as something we hand down and start treating it as something we build together.

That looks like little and often rather than a single dreaded event, whether that is a weekly catch up or an honest word in the moment. It looks like turning up prepared, with the context and the detail, so the person in front of you can actually make sense of what you are saying rather than simply feeling got at.

And it looks like genuine two way conversation. There is a world of difference between telling someone they got it wrong and saying, here is what I noticed, here is what someone else observed, and I would really like to hear your side of it. Even hard feedback goes down more easily when the person receiving it is allowed to be a person in the exchange.

The most important part, and the part we skip most often, is modelling it ourselves. As leaders we should be the ones asking for the spears first, out loud and in front of our teams.

When people watch us invite honest feedback and respond to it well, they learn that feedback is not a punishment and that no one is being singled out. It belongs to everyone.

Framed that way, it stops being about apportioning blame and becomes about finding the lesson, which in turn gives people the confidence to take sensible risks in their work without taking every wobble personally.

Building a culture that asks for spears

Used well, feedback is one of the most generous things we can offer one another at work. It says I have paid attention, I want you to be better, and I believe you can be.

The firms that will thrive over the next few years are not the ones with the most polished praise or the busiest notifications. They are the ones brave enough to build a culture where everyone, from the newest joiner to the person at the very top, is comfortable asking the same question.

Not, did I do well? But, where can I do better, and what is the spear I need to hear?

So this is the small challenge I am setting myself, and passing on to you. The next time you are tempted to wait for the applause, ask for a spear instead. And when someone is brave enough to hand you one, say thank you, and mean it.