360 degree feedback is a highly effective development tool that provides people with feedback from their manager, colleagues, subordinates and others who know them well, to help them understand their strengths and weaknesses better.
Typically, it involves a confidential assessment of a person’s skills in an online survey. In some cases, it may be conducted through confidential interviews with senior leaders, peers, subordinates, direct reports and other stakeholders by an experienced coach.
Unfortunately, constructive feedback can be hard to come by. Managers and executives are often busy and tactically focused, which means that time and attention to giving careful and thorough feedback on how their people are doing is easily overlooked.
Benefits of 360 degree feedback
Many organisations have recognised that 360 degree survey are a powerful way to help people perform better and realise their full potential. They enable individuals and groups to develop capability because they:
- Raise the self-awareness of participants
- Stimulate self-improvement for job and career success
- Create a climate for honest development conversations
- Help teams learn how to work together more effectively
- Determine common development needs across groups.
To continue reading about the benefits of 360 degree feedback, read ‘Three ways to really benefit from your 360 degree feedback report’.
To learn more on how you can maximise the benefit of your 360 experience, read ‘Proven strategies for success after receiving 360 feedback‘.
Building Leadership Capability
To deliver valuable feedback, a 360 degree survey must contain questions directly related to skills that lead to success at work. Fortunately, you can choose an instrument that best matches your feedback needs:
- Korn Ferry 360 (KF360) – gives a comprehensive view of a person’s capability across four essential leadership domains.
- KF360 Pulse – provides a quick, focused and powerful assessment to illustrate a person’s development progress in a complete 360 degree review.
- Agile Leader 360 – measures the agility required to lead change and transformation in disruptive environments successfully.
- Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI) – illustrates how a person demonstrates four distinct areas of emotional intelligence.
- Life Styles Inventory (LSI) – helps individuals understand their thinking and behavioural styles and the impact they have on others.
For organisations that have created Success Profiles for specific jobs or levels, 360 degree feedback offers a targeted approach to prioritising personal and professional development.
Group Reporting
We recommend aggregating 360 data for groups to identify common strengths and capability gaps.
Whilst no individual data is included, it is a powerful way to identify overall capability gaps. Set in the context of business strategy, it enables organisations to predict the group’s likely business contribution and to respond to overall development needs.
Driving Development
The 360 degree feedback process is invaluable because it gathers input from multiple perspectives, giving a complete view of the strengths and development needs of individuals, teams and organisations.
This insight helps people create a plan for their personal and professional development. It also helps organisations establish a capability framework based on the skills people see as essential for success.
Implementing a program of 360 degree feedback demonstrates an organisation’s commitment to employee development and continuous improvement. Opening up communication on critical skills empowers individuals to take ownership of their development.
Additionally, analysing group 360 degree data helps organisations identify essential business skills, use them to create a current leadership capability framework and introduce exceptional training programs.
In summary, the 360 degree feedback process benefits individual development and organisational growth, enhancing engagement, performance, and agility for the future.
LDN International offers a proven methodology for identifying development opportunities and establishing pathways to improvement, driving positive change.