Everyone needs feedback. No-one sees themselves as others see them. So in the workplace, we need feedback to do our jobs better, work with others more effectively and develop our skills so we don’t stand still. This article explains why 360 feedback is important.
Feedback from everyone you work with
Feedback can come from a colleague or a manager making an observation or recommendation. For example, if you’ve made a good presentation, your manager might tell you what made it a good presentation. She can also suggest ways it can be even better next time.
360 Degree Feedback takes feedback to another level, where you get feedback from the people you work with. This includes your manager, but also your peers, and if you yourself manage a team, your team will also give you feedback.
Why is this important?
Day to day feedback is generally task based, about what you do. But work is not just about task,s it’s also about relationships. Unless you work completely alone, how you work matters. Do you share information, work co-operatively and help others to develop? Or are you difficult to work with, inconsiderate or unhelpful. Now people might not feel confident giving you that kinds of feedback. And different colleagues will experience you differently in the workplace. Your manager might observe you in certain behaviours; it may be you are more open to ideas when they come from your manager, but you tend to dismiss ideas from your team, or your peers.
Therefore 360 gives you important information that is a template for planning your learning and development.
And of course, 360 can also highlight areas where you are performing well, and how you can continue to make the best of those positive skills.
Self-evaluation in 360 feedback
360 includes an element of self-evaluation too. You can reflect on the same skills and evaluate yourself. You can then compare this with your colleagues’ feedback – it can be an eye opener to see where your views and your colleagues observations match – or not!
You can see why, as you build your career, it’s important to be able to get honest and constructive feedback from everyone around you (hence 360).
360 Feedback for managers and leaders
As you develop in your career, and take on more responsibility, there is a tendency for people to be less prepared to give you honest feedback. After all, you may have the power to make or break their career. That’s why 360 Degree Feedback is even more important for senior managers and leaders. Because 360 feedback is most commonly reported anonymously, and aggregated together for this reason, you are likely to get more feedback, and more useful feedback. You can get a clearer picture of your leadership skills, the good as well as the not-so-good. And you can adjust and develop based on that feedback.
Go grab some 360 feedback!
So if you’re offered the chance to get 360 Degree Feedback, don’t be afraid! It’s an opportunity to get some great tips to improve your performance, management and leadership skills.
