What Does Your Team See That You Don’t?

As discussed in a recent newsletter, our leadership self-assessment is a useful starting point to identify leadership development opportunities. It tells you what your intentions are, what you’re working to achieve, and it points out the areas where you think you’re strong and areas where you are less confident.

What leaders often overlook, however, is that your team isn’t experiencing your intent. They’re experiencing your behavior.

That gap, between how you see yourself and how your team sees you, is where the most useful insights in leadership development can be found, and it’s not something you can think your way to. You have to ask the people who know.

Most leaders never do, and the reasons are understandable. It feels risky to invite honest feedback. There’s no clean way to make it anonymous on your own. And there’s a real chance you’ll hear something that’s hard to hear.

The leaders who do ask, and who make it safe enough to get honest answers, learn things they could not have learned any other way. The ones who don’t, end up with a polished version of the truth that wastes everyone’s time.

There’s a structured way to invite that feedback, protect the people who give it, and turn the insights that come back into something you can actually use.

That’s what you're about to discover.

Free Download: Leadership 360 Degree Feedback Tool

The Leadership 360 is a practical way to collect honest, anonymous feedback from the people around you, your manager, your peers, and your direct reports, and turn it into a clear path for progress.

Each rater answers 32 short statements across the same eight leadership categories you saw on the Leadership Self-Assessment. The tool then compiles all of their responses into a single composite report. You see averages across raters, themes from their comments, and the categories where the team’s view is strongest and weakest. You never see who said what, you just reap the benefits of their collective feedback.

The whole process runs in about two weeks from start to finish. The Excel version handles the math for you and produces the report automatically. The printable PDF and Word versions work just as well if you’d rather have the process all paper-based. Whichever format you choose, the workbook includes a step-by-step Administrator’s Guide, three copy-paste email templates for inviting and reminding your raters, and a worked example so you can see what completed results look like before you start.

One important note. A 360 is never run by the leader being assessed. Honest feedback is diminished the moment rater's think you'll know who said what. Ask a trusted third party to administer for you, an HR partner, an executive coach, a mentor outside your reporting chain, or a peer leader from another team. Your job is to receive the feedback, not collect it.

The bonus. If you’ve already completed the Leadership Self-Assessment, the workbook includes an optional Self vs. 360 Comparison tab. You enter your eight self-scores, and the tool shows you the gap between your view and the team’s view, category by category. The gaps are where the real learning lives. The blind spots are where the real growth opportunities are found.

Leadership 360 Degree Feedback Tool →

This is the third tool in a row built around the same eight leadership categories. The Leadership Assessment showed you your self-view. The 10 Key Questions Leadership Quiz checked your commitments to your team. The 360 shows you what your team actually experiences. Three angles on the same eight skills, and now you have all three.

Richard

P.S. The biggest mistake leaders make with a 360 review is not running it at all. You can’t see the back of your own head without a mirror. This is your leadership mirror.