360 Degree Feedback In Developing Leadership Skills Management Essay

360 Degree Feedback In Developing Leadership Skills Management Essay There is a great deal of controversy about the relevancy of using 360-degree feedback as a tool to develop leadership skills. Some view 360-degree feedback as a collaborative tool, a tool offering a more balanced circle of feedback based on the assessments of superiors, peers, and subordinates. These views lead me to wonder, how effective can this tool be if it does not factor in â€Å"leadership styles† and the potential for bias based on â€Å"popularity?† Will personality and popularity play a role in the assessment? Though extreme, there is some merit to my position. This realization guided me to my decision that 360-degree feedback is an effective tool to provide self assessment and can also be used to enhance performance measures during annual counseling such as leadership, communication, and mission effectiveness. Background The underlying theory of 360-degree feedback asserts that an assessment received from multiple sources provides unique and meaningful infor mation to the recipient. Rapid growth of its use was fueled by the need to adapt to a changing human resources management environment and by numerous studies that supported the effectiveness of multi-source ratings in post-feedback management development. A significant complaint of the traditional performance appraisal system voiced by services is that feedback is generally one-sided and can lack objectivity. In the 1940s, the Army implemented a tool called the multi-rater system, also known as the multisource assessment process.   [ 1 ]   The multi-rater system allows a person’s evaluation to encompass reviews from not only a rater, but also a person’s subordinates, peers, clients, and organizational hierarchy. This allows a reviewer to get a more complete picture of a person and removes a singular rater from being able to determine the fate of a career. If an officer’s boss dislikes a subordinate, but he gets top marks from everyone else, it puts the bossà ¢â‚¬â„¢s review in context, and would likely generate questions from the senior rater over the rating ability of the boss. In 2006, the Navy tested a prototype model of the 360-degree feedback process in the Surface Warfare Community. Similar to Army results, the Navy prototype showcased a strength of the 360-degree feedback process is its ability to provide varying perspectives of raters. The Navy prototype findings also emphasized that a supervisor cannot observe all the interactions, strengths and opportunities for improvement of his subordinates for evaluation reports, especially if the span of control is broad.   [ 2 ]   So why should the supervisor be the only person to provide performance feedback? Discussion A major advantage to the 360-degree feedback process is that it provides an opportunity for people with whom a person comes into frequent contact to offer feedback. This is an important consideration because the rater should be the person that has observed the employ ee on a frequent basis. It would be unfair and impractical to ask a rater for input when the opportunity to observe an employee’s skills, talents and abilities have not been provided on a regular basis. Let’s look at two examples of 360-degree feedback in action; first let’s look at an Army Captain who serves as a signal officer in an infantry battalion. His rater is the Battalion Executive Officer, a combat-arms officer, who does not know much about communication other than how to operate a radio. If the signal officer performs his job well, the XO will likely give him a reasonably favorable review on a traditional Evaluation Review. Now let’s use a 360-degree feedback process and involve his higher-echelon counterpart, the Brigade S6 Officer, who is a Major and a signal officer, who gives the Captain an excellent rating based on his technical proficiency. If we involve his section, they can comment on his leadership, management style and his ability to explain complex technical issues in plain English. His peers in the battalion, other captains and the company commanders, all give him high marks for working with them to resolve communication issues. Now the 360-degree feedback process is given to his senior rater, the Battalion Commander, who now has a more complete view of this officer and how he has performed based on additional feedback from numerous sources, rather than the traditional counseling from one rater that would have communicated a generic, but reasonably positive review.