360 Assessment: A Snapshot in Time

by kathy Cooperman

When was the last time you had a true picture of your leadership effectiveness? A 360 assessment may be just the right tool to provide you with honest feedback from your critical stakeholders.
What is a 360 assessment?

Just as the term “360” suggests, it’s a collection of ratings from everyone all around you. Raters typically include:

- You (you’ll rate yourself on the same competencies as everyone else)
- Your boss (if you’re the business owner it could be your Board of Directors)
- Your direct reports (those who report directly to you)
- Peers
- Others (could be customers, vendors, etc.)
The most effective assessments are online questionnaires, preferably administered by a third party, to ensure anonymity for the raters. Your goal is to receive honest and constructive feedback. Ensure everyone that their responses will be completely anonymous; this will heighten participation and candor.

Mechanics of the Assessment
The 360 questionnaire should be based on customized leader competencies—skills, observable behaviors, and knowledge that are critical to your success in your current leadership role. Raters are asked to rank the importance of the selected competencies and to rate your effectiveness in each of them.
A combination of well-designed objective questions and open-ended questions will give you a good look at how you are showing up to your rater groups.

Planning for Success
Whether you’re working with an internal department or an outside consultant, be sure to communicate your request for honest feedback to your raters. Explain how the 360 process will work, including timeframes, anonymity and what you’ll do with the feedback.

Express appreciation upfront. Direct them to a contact person in case they have questions as the process rolls out.

Receiving Your Report
I prefer face-to-face meetings to deliver the feedback report. Try to arrange a time and place where the meeting will be uninterrupted, if possible. I schedule 90 minutes for feedback meetings.

Be open to potential surprises in the feedback—sometimes pleasant and sometimes unpleasant surprises. Resist the potential to get defensive or make excuses for feedback that you don’t agree with.

Watch for patterns or trends in responses. Be aware of gaps in ratings between you and any of the other rater groups. How did you rate yourself? Do you have a pattern of rating yourself consistently higher or lower than your other rater groups?

Next Steps
The next step should be to create a development plan. I suggest taking on no more than two or three development goals based on your greatest strengths and potential areas for improvement. For each of the goals:

- State your development goal and why you selected it
- What’s your desired outcome?
- What are the obstacles that could get in the way of success? How will you work around those obstacles?
- To whom will you be accountable for success?
- What resources will you need?

 

 

Kathy Cooperman, an executive coach and leadership expert, is the president and founder of KC Leadership Consulting LLC. For more information, contact her at kathy@kathycooperman.com, www.
kathycooperman.com or 720.542.3324.