How to Help Leaders Accept 360-degree Feedback Results

Support the 360-Feedback Process with Personality Assessment Data

If you have ever managed a 360 feedback rollout, you know it is a time-intensive process. 

After all the time and effort spent coordinating, reviewing, analyzing, and coaching, we expect that leaders will understand how their actions contribute to the climate, engagement, and performance of their team and then act on this knowledge to close skill gaps.  

Yet, some leaders hesitate to believe that the feedback from this process, especially critical feedback, is accurate. 

When their self-image differs from the image presented during feedback, they naturally push back. 

To help leaders trust the feedback and work on skill deficits, we add a personality or behavioral style self-assessment to the 360-degree feedback process. We have found that these tools help leaders accept feedback they may feel is harmful or hurts their self-image since the information is based on their assessment of themselves.

Bob Pike once told me, “ People don’t argue with their own data.”  His comment referred to the results of a self-report assessment like Everything DiSC and PXT Select. These assessments have a high face validity score, which validates Pike’s point (Everything DiSC has a 95% score). 

However, I’ve noticed an interesting trend in my 30+ years of facilitating sessions to promote and improve self-awareness. During a group learning session, as participants read their personality profiles, I ask them to highlight what they agreed and disagreed with in their report. In most of the events I’ve facilitated, the statements learners disagree with most are the more negative aspects of their personality style. 

They agree with the strengths but not the limitations. 

So why suggest using a personality assessment like Everything DiSC or PXT Select with your 360 feedback process to help leaders believe their results?  

So you can point out the obvious to a leader who is pushing back: The personality report is based on their assessment of themself and the limitations they’ve identified match the raters’ observations in the 360 Feedback report. 

This combination of data can help leaders going through a 360 feedback process be more accepting of critical feedback. Next, I’ll show you how it can work.

How to help leaders accept their 360 feedback

How to use Personality Assessments in a 360 Feedback Process to get acceptance of feedback

When conducting a 360 feedback session, we use a 360 feedback tool called Checkpoint 360. The tool segments rater data into the following categories:

  • Self-rating (the leader’s rating of themselves)
  • Upline manager’s rating (the leader’s direct boss(s) – up to three bosses) 
  • There are two other categories of raters for individuals who work with/for the leader (i.e., direct reports, peers, etc. – these categories are customizable).

Checkpoint 360 asks all raters (leader included) standardized questions about eight leadership competencies (communication, leadership, adaptability, relationships, task management, production, development of others, and self).

Below is a snapshot of my Checkpoint 360 report. To understand this report, here is a key to the graph below:

  • S = My ratings of myself
  • B = The ratings of my upline manager
  • A = ratings of all other rater categories

Notice my results below, specifically number 37.

My self-rating is the highest of the three shown ratings here. Yet, my raters perceive this feedback item differently (maintaining composure in high-pressure situations). 

Without context, this feedback could be challenging to accept. However, personality data about me can help explain what’s going on.

Here is what my PXT Select assessment results say about how I work with others:

The data from the PXT Select assessment shows that I will say what’s on my mind. 

This describes a core part of my personality and can help explain why others may feel I don’t maintain composure during high-pressure situations. I may express myself in a way that doesn’t meet the situation’s needs.

Now, let’s look at my Everything DiSC Agile EQ results, a report that examines explicitly my emotional intelligence in situations like those described in number 37 above during my 360-degree feedback report.

What you see above is my effort meter for the Composed Mindset. This is one of the eight different Emotional Intelligence mindsets that Agile EQ measures.

As you can see, this is a developmental opportunity for me. Maintaining composure during emotionally charged situations requires a lot of effort. 

Providing all of this information together, it’s easier to find consistency in how I’ve rated myself and how others may see me within this single area of feedback.

For anyone required to coach a leader with similar improvement areas, these two reports can help clarify what raters are seeing. Taken together, the leader is presented with the viewpoints of how others see them and how they see themselves.

How Personality Assessments Used in 360 Feedback Can Help the Coaching Process

Regardless of which personality assessment you prefer, we believe the insights derived from these tools will support a leader’s ability to accept critical feedback during the coaching stages of the 360 degree process.

We use Everything DiSC and/or insights from the pre-employment assessment called PXT Select.

The Everything DiSC Agile EQ report offers developmental activities in addition to identifying my emotional regulation capabilities. 

Below, you will see the tips this report provides, along with some specific actions, which are ranked by order of difficulty:

How Everything DiSC supports the 360-degree coaching process

I click the plus sign in the left margin to develop one of these skills and get activities to try. 

To start this process, I’ve decided to learn my signs of emotional exhaustion to begin working on composure. As I recognize these signs, there are some simple steps I can take: stepping back, not speaking, not deciding, or responding at the moment when these signs are present.

As simple as it sounds, these have not always been my common practices. 

How I use Everything DiSC to support 360-feedback coaching around improving composure

PXT Select also includes a coaching report that is included within the hiring and selection assessment process.

Here is the section that covers areas that can help me develop being more composed:

The difference between these tips and the development process Everything DiSC provides compared to PXT is that PXT is designed to allow my manager to help me in the developmental process.

Potentially, my manager can help me be more balanced in identifying when to speak up and allowing others to share their perspectives even when they directly disagree with what I feel is right.

Other Considerations to Achieve Feedback Buy-in From Leaders during a 360-degree Program

Our 360-degree feedback guide outlines nine tips to make 360 feedback more effective. 

Here are three simple best practices outlined in that article that will also help you gain buy-in from the leaders you are coaching.

1- Use feedback ONLY for development.

Leaders (and raters) must know how the feedback will be used. 

In our experience, many leaders believe the 360 process might be used to make organizational cuts or promotion decisions. We strongly advise against this and suggest that feedback should only ever be used for developmental purposes. 

When leaders understand the spirit in which feedback is offered, they are more likely to use the information to develop their skills.  

To help communicate this effectively, we suggest adding an orientation to the feedback process and outlining how the feedback will be used only for developmental purposes.

2- Don’t provide feedback results to the upline manager.

If the feedback is only for development, we don’t believe the upline manager needs to see the full 360-degree report’s results. 

The upline manager needs to see the individual development plan based on the feedback results. They need to know the specific goals and plans to support, encourage, and hold the leader accountable for this work. They don’t need all of the feedback used to create this plan.

When leaders recognize they are the only people seeing the report, it’s more difficult for them to conclude that it will be used in any capacity beyond professional development.

3- Teach leaders how to get additional feedback.

At times, additional feedback could be helpful beyond the 360 assessment

After receiving critical feedback, hearing real examples can help leaders visualize themselves demonstrating the behaviors that have been identified. To do this, leaders must hear directly from direct reports, peers, or colleagues.

When approaching direct reports, special precautions should be taken to prevent them from feeling threatened by such questions. We suggest leaders work with the coach to gain this information to ensure it’s done correctly and without causing unnecessary interpersonal conflict.

Additional feedback is hugely constructive when a leader has worked hard at building a particular skill and wants to know if their hard work is being seen.

Need help running or starting a 360-Feedback Program?

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