Today, I want to talk to you about building leaders that will help you explode the growth of your company. At some point in the development of your organization you will need to hire a manager or supervisor. This hire will be vital to the future success of the company because it is the people that make an organization great, and if those people are not inspired by a true leader, they will not perform to their peak potential.
I learned this later in my career as a business owner using a 360-survey tool. Honestly, if you had asked me, and the survey did, I would have told you my team and I worked well together. The truth was we didn’t! While I thought I was inspiring them, they thought I was intimidating and difficult to communicate with.
Imagine if you could take that newly hired manager or supervisor and fine tune their ability to communicate and motivate the rest of the team. The result is a team of employees who are all on the same page and are motivated to deliver on the mission of the organization. A 360-degree survey, done correctly, allows the manager to go on a journey of self-exploration that not only allows them to grow but empowers them to build leaders below them who can later be promoted.
When done right, 360-degree feedback boosts employee performance and professional development. Some of the main advantages of using this tool are:
- Increased self-awareness: 360 feedback employees become aware of their strengths and weaknesses.
- Identification of skill gaps that helps leaders recognize blind spots and hidden strengths.
- Provides an overall employee assessment. This knowledge is critical to growing your business as it guides training efforts that promote business success and individual development.
- Improves productivity: Fosters good working relationships and increases employee productivity. Positive feedback boosts employee confidence and encourages them to do more.
- Provides leaders insights: Leaders can better understand employees’ skills and decide which roles best suit them.
- Increases transparency: Helps build trust and facilitates open communication.
The truth is not all 360-degree surveys will deliver these results. Three persistent issues prevent 360-degree surveys from delivering the total value of the organization’s investment. For decades, 360 reports have been:
- Data heavy
- Complicated and difficult to interpret
- Lack a plan for effecting real change or improvement
Some 360s are so complex that organizations hire certified experts to interpret the data and debrief the results. Participants can be overwhelmed by the amount of data and daunted by figuring out what to do with the feedback.
I recently started working with a company that I recommend to my clients because they have solved these problems with a simple yet elegant 360 report that incorporates a proven change model with the feedback. The combination simplifies the data and illuminates how to use the feedback to improve performance. They utilize a self-debriefing action report that results in personal, practical, motivating action plans that participants implement to achieve success.
If you are building out a management team, or already have one that could use some improvement, I highly recommend using a 360-degree survey tool like the one described here. If the feedback isn’t easy for the manager/leader to understand and get on board with, change will not take place.
As always, feel free to leave me a comment below or reach out directly, if I can help you with this or any other issue that will help grow your organization.