360-Degree Feedback: A Powerful Leadership Development Tool

Growing a successful organization starts from the very top of the employee ladder and begins with the basics: internal feedback. Leadership teams’ actions trickle down into every part of an organization, and poor training can decrease overall employee satisfaction. While a strong onboarding program is a great way to train new hires, leadership development should continue to evolve long after the first day.

Many factors go into effective management training, but many forget that a great and straightforward starting point is asking for feedback from your employees. Here’s how to use 360-degree feedback as a powerful leadership development tool.

What Is a 360-Degree Survey?

The goal of a 360-degree survey is to gather anonymous feedback about an employee from the people who work closely with the individual. The survey provides the opportunity to help employees improve their interactions, communication, and overall job performance. 

360-degree surveys don’t focus on performance but rather on an employee’s behavior. A 360-degree survey is a way of eliciting feedback from colleagues, direct reports, and supervisors. These surveys often include a self-evaluation portion too.

Because the survey is anonymous, it provides an excellent opportunity to find blind spots in an employee’s perceived self without adding strain to their professional relationships.

How 360-Degree Feedback Helps Leadership Development

Cultivating a positive company culture that encourages career growth among employees and provides the tools to do so starts with a powerful leadership team. While an employee works hard to earn a leadership position at an organization, it doesn’t mean there isn’t room for growth and development along the way.  

360-degree feedback is a powerful tool for your organization to look inward at its leaders and take the results as goals for growth. Direct reports and colleagues tend to work with leadership the most and, in return, can offer the most valuable feedback. A complete round of feedback covering all aspects of the organization can help you recognize any cracks in the foundation. 

When jumping into a new initiative around gathering feedback, be sensitive to any hesitation. Managers and leaders may be wary of the feedback they receive, especially any that can be seen as negative. Paint the initiative as an opportunity to set leadership goals instead of punishing leaders for skills they haven’t developed yet. Feedback should be viewed as constructive instead of negative.

360-Degree Feedback Can Boost Morale

Another benefit of 360-degree feedback for the leaders of your company is the morale it can bring to a team. Offering employees the chance to provide input helps them feel valued as team members and allows leaders to develop closer working relationships with their subordinates.

Conducting a 360-degree feedback survey for your leadership team is also a great time to ask employees what qualities or tactics from a leader make them feel valued in the workplace. Learning these values from your employees can be an excellent starting point for mapping out your leadership training. Receiving periodic feedback keeps the organization’s goals fresh and relevant and helps you set goals for in-person training sessions. 

360-Degree Feedback with BerniePortal’s Performance Management Tool

Each feature of BerniePortal works in harmony with the others, solving unique problems HR professionals face daily. BerniePortal’s Performance Management feature helps organizations build strong relationships with their employees and cultivate positive company culture.

Moving performance management onto a digital hub allows organizations to grow relationships with their employees in one place, without the time commitment. Your organization can create customizable surveys with yes or no, 1-10 scale, or written response structures. These surveys can be sent to individual employees, the whole company, or a 360-degree peer reviews group.

Ready to start growing relationships with employees and encourage career development?  Request a demo of BerniePortal today!