Survey template · 5 questions
Manager effectiveness survey template
People leave managers, not companies — but most organisations only discover a management problem through exit interviews. An upward feedback survey measures the specific manager behaviours that drive retention while there is still time to coach: useful feedback, removing blockers, genuine care for wellbeing, and keeping the team informed.
This template uses a consistent 1–5 agreement scale so results are comparable across managers and over time, plus a start/stop/continue open question that gives managers something concrete to act on. Anonymity is essential for honest upward feedback: MindSafe never attaches names and applies a five-respondent floor, so feedback in small teams cannot be attributed.
The questions in this template
Every question is editable in the survey builder before you activate — change wording, reorder, or add your own questions.
Q1 · Rating scale (1–5)
My manager gives me feedback that helps me improve.
Q2 · Rating scale (1–5)
My manager removes blockers rather than creating them.
Q3 · Rating scale (1–5)
My manager genuinely cares about my wellbeing.
Q4 · Rating scale (1–5)
My manager keeps me informed about decisions that affect me.
Q5 · Open text · optional
What should your manager start, stop, or continue doing?
When to use it
- Twice a year as part of a manager development cycle
- After promoting new managers, once they have had a full quarter in the role
- When a team's engagement or wellbeing scores diverge from the rest of the organisation
Frequently asked questions
- What should an upward feedback survey ask about managers?
- Focus on observable behaviours, not personality: does the manager give feedback that helps you improve, remove blockers, genuinely care about wellbeing, and keep you informed about decisions that affect you. Behavioural questions produce feedback managers can act on.
- How do you keep upward feedback anonymous in small teams?
- With a hard structural rule. MindSafe withholds a team's results entirely until at least five people have responded, so a manager of three can never deduce who said what — the results simply do not appear.
- Will managers accept anonymous upward feedback?
- Managers push back when feedback feels like a verdict. Framing it as development — consistent behavioural questions, trends over time, and a start/stop/continue suggestion — turns it into the most useful coaching input most managers receive.
Run this survey with anonymous, privacy-floored results.
This template ships inside MindSafe alongside the daily burnout pulse. Book a guided two-week pilot — we handle setup, employee import, and training.
Book your 2-week pilot