Ten Ways to Get Most from 360 Assessment
Ten Ways to Get the Most from a 360-Degree Leadership Assessment
By David Levy
Dan McCarthy of the Whittemore School of Business Economics shares some best practices for getting the most value from a 360-degree leadership assessment. In employee-owned businesses, an alignment of goals and priorities is vital and desired. The leadership should be interested in an assessment of their performance. Leadership in these companies may be unorthodoxly defined because it may include culture leadership and not only corporate leadership. What is a 360-degree assessment? It is a process in which employees receive confidential, anonymous feedback from the people who work around them. This typically includes the employee's manager, peers and direct reports. It is an effective way to get feedback, often against a set of pre-defined leadership competencies. Here are McCarthy's 10 top tips for getting the most value from a 360-degree leadership assessment: 1. Mentally prepare yourself Prepare yourself to accept the feedback positively, as the next step to becoming a better leader. 2. Don't try to figure it out yourself Discuss the results with a coach, colleague or a mentor. If you are using an organization to administer the assessment, use their assistance in evaluating the results. It is too easy to miss something important or to misread something. We sometimes see what we want to see, are too hard on ourselves or make assumptions that others would not make. 3. Don't play detective When one is too close to the data, human nature will often cause us to want to determine who submitted the information which is submitted anonymously. With the exception of the manager, the reporting is designed to protect anonymity. 4. Holistically or systematically? Leaders have different personality types. Some prefer to take a holistic approach to the results by
taking in the ratings, feedback and everyone's comments and coming up with an overall evaluation, as well as coming up with
By David Levy
Dan McCarthy of the Whittemore School of Business Economics shares some best practices for getting the most value from a 360-degree leadership assessment. In employee-owned businesses, an alignment of goals and priorities is vital and desired. The leadership should be interested in an assessment of their performance. Leadership in these companies may be unorthodoxly defined because it may include culture leadership and not only corporate leadership. What is a 360-degree assessment? It is a process in which employees receive confidential, anonymous feedback from the people who work around them. This typically includes the employee's manager, peers and direct reports. It is an effective way to get feedback, often against a set of pre-defined leadership competencies. Here are McCarthy's 10 top tips for getting the most value from a 360-degree leadership assessment: 1. Mentally prepare yourself Prepare yourself to accept the feedback positively, as the next step to becoming a better leader. 2. Don't try to figure it out yourself Discuss the results with a coach, colleague or a mentor. If you are using an organization to administer the assessment, use their assistance in evaluating the results. It is too easy to miss something important or to misread something. We sometimes see what we want to see, are too hard on ourselves or make assumptions that others would not make. 3. Don't play detective When one is too close to the data, human nature will often cause us to want to determine who submitted the information which is submitted anonymously. With the exception of the manager, the reporting is designed to protect anonymity. 4. Holistically or systematically? Leaders have different personality types. Some prefer to take a holistic approach to the results by
taking in the ratings, feedback and everyone's comments and coming up with an overall evaluation, as well as coming up with