I’ve interviewed hundreds of candidates for management positions. One of the questions I ask candidates is what their team thinks of them. I often get answers like, “I think they like me,” “they seem to respect me,” and the ever popular “my attrition is low.”

What’s astonishing about these answers is that they’re guesses. A manager, whose primary job is working with people, does not know what those people think. For some of them, it hasn’t even occurred to them to think about it.

The tragedy here is not just that the answers are important. It certainly is important. These are the people who have the best knowledge of how these managers work, and they’re also the ones most impacted by the manager. But the real tragedy is how easy the answers are to get.

I make it a habit to ask my direct reports what they think of my performance at least once a quarter. I typically do it in the middle of the quarter so that it’s not near any performance review period so they’re less anxious. I ask them if there are things I could do better, things I should stop doing, and things where I’m not active but should be. I also ask them if I am giving them the right balance of independence and direction.

Finally, I ask the most important question: “do you feel comfortable disagreeing with me or telling me when you think I’m wrong?” I don’t just listen to the answer. I watch them carefully and listen to how they answer. If they say yes, that they are comfortable disagreeing with me and telling me I’m wrong, I want to really believe it. If they hesitate, if they’re unsure, if they’re too quick to answer, then I’ll know they’re trying to tell me what they think I want to hear.

Between this and 360 feedback, I have a pretty good idea what my team thinks of me. If someone asked me, I could answer confidently and definitively. I wouldn’t have to guess. That’s not about being interviewed. It’s about being a little bit better of a manager every day.