What is 360-degree Feedback?

360-degree feedback is a method of gathering feedback about yourself from others, anonymously, using a standard questionnaire. It is an immensely powerful tool for gaining insight into your perceived leadership skills.

The questionnaire is usually structured by the key competencies which are important to your role and organisation. It will comprise a set of questions where respondents will be asked to rate your performance on each competence. There will also be space for them to make comments. We issue the questionnaire to a group people you nominate, generally people who work with you, and know you well. The respondents are split into categories i.e. people who report to you, other colleagues, your manager(s) and possibly others such as suppliers or customers. You will be asked to complete the questionnaire about yourself as well. We combine the responses from everyone into a report. In order that people can feel safe to answer freely, without potential repercussions, responses are shown in the report anonymously. Manager responses, though, are normally attributed.

Facilitation and Training

Because some of the feedback can be sensitive, we do not just send the report to you. We give you the report as part of a conversation with a trained facilitator. We can provide trained consultants. We also provide in-house 360-degree facilitation training.

There are several key aspects to making the best use of 360-degree feedback. The most successful managers are those who seek first to understand feedback - rather than become defensive and reject it. It is important to recognise what ratings and comments surprise you, confirm your preconceptions, or you disagree with. It is important to sort the wheat from the chaff. Which issues raised do you most wish to address and which are noise. The next steps are to prioritise what you want to change, come up with a plan to achieve the change, to put it into action and to monitor progress.

Executive Coaching

360-degree feedback is a key tool for coaches at the beginning of an assignment, to help the client gain self-insight and to help the coach build a picture of the coachee's strengths and development areas. It is particularly useful if combined with a Personality and a Motivation Questionnaire to measure self-report behavioural and motivational preferences. Pulse Feedback is also a useful tool for tracking progress towards developmental goals.

Variations on a Theme

We offer four standard questionnaires, based on the idea of the leadership pipeline:

• Leadership Readiness. This is aimed at people considering, or being considered for progressing from an individual contributor role to a leadership role. There is no cut of the data by 'direct reports'.
• Leader Questionnaire. This is the regular product as described above.
• Senior Leader Questionnaire. This questionnaire is aimed at people who manage managers.
• C-Suite Questionnaire. This questionnaire is aimed at Board level and Executive Team members whose responsibilities are often different from departmental and general managers.

We can also provide customised questionnaires based on your own competency framework, job role or level of seniority.

We also provide Pulse Feedback.

Image credit: Pierre Blaché from Pixabay