Leadership assessment with 360° feedback

Volatile markets and ever faster-changing environmental conditions demand a great deal of flexibility from managers, a high tolerance of ambiguity and a professional approach to uncertainty. Among other things, this means that managers must be able to make complex decisions even though not all data and information are available to them. This circumstance, combined with increasingly multi-layered conditions, raises a question: how can key players in organisations be prepared for these increasingly demanding challenges?

Changed conditions, globalisation and internationalisation mean that managers are expected to deliver top performance overnight in a new function, in a new culture and language or in a new task. Sometimes all three challenges come together. Assignments in Asia in particular require quite different, new abilities that differ significantly from learned and practised patterns of thinking and acting.

Smart companies know that managers and key players must not be left alone in these new situations. They make it possible, for example, to develop a 100-day programme supported by coaching on the basis of a competence assessment. In this way, these organisations save themselves unnecessary costs associated with a manager’s poor performance.

In order to support managers in mastering their tasks in the best possible and most targeted way, it is important to know their strengths and development opportunities, especially in the context of the task. On this basis, an individual development programme can be designed and implemented.

To identify the competences to be developed, transformis recommends a 360° feedback process. It is based on standardised descriptions of observable behaviour using the three observation points of knowing, wanting and being able.

The 360° feedback process is based on a leadership competence model that is used to assess and develop managers. The competence set is based on research into core competences and characteristics that are consistently associated with leadership success. It serves to build individual, research-based and proven development plans for 86 of the most common development needs. At the same time, it makes possible both self-assessment and assessment by others of managers’ strengths and development opportunities.

In this understanding, leadership competences comprise three things: the knowledge available, the will, and the abilities and skills that enable a person to deliver a certain level of performance, that is, being able. So-called career stoppers are also of great importance in this context. This refers to behaviour that can prematurely end a career in an organisation.

The standardised description of these leadership competences allows a so-called relative evaluation of leadership competences within the 360° feedback process. It enables a differentiated view of the strengths and development opportunities of the candidates taking part in the process.

360° feedback follows five principles. It provides valuable indications of managers’ individual strengths and development areas. It shows how candidates are perceived by others with regard to certain behaviours and competences. It confronts the candidate with clear feedback that has a strong personal impact. The results can be used for targeted development planning. Finally, the process is suitable for periodic repetition.

Ideally, before the 360° feedback process is carried out, a clearly defined, if possible company-specific, requirements profile for the function or task is drawn up. The candidate’s current level of competence can be mirrored against this profile. This produces a comparison of target and actual state.

Feedback providers are the candidate’s superior, colleagues, employees and customers. They are asked to give the candidate feedback on the basis of the standardised descriptions of the competences. Added to this is the candidate’s self-assessment. Self-assessment and assessment by others thus result in an expert report that brings both views of strengths and development opportunities together.

This meaningful feedback report is compiled from the data collected and explained first to the candidate, then to the superior. A facilitated meeting between the two then takes place. The facilitator ensures an open and constructive atmosphere.

During the meeting, it is jointly worked out which existing strengths and which identified development opportunities are relevant to the task and should be taken into account in the personal development programme.

In this way, the candidate’s blind spots regarding their strengths and development opportunities become transparent. The same applies to the blind spots the superior has with regard to the candidate. What is transparent thus also becomes discussable.

In the next step, work on a development plan is carried out together with the candidate. It is based on the results of the facilitated feedback meeting between the candidate and their superior.

The concept assumes that 70 per cent of development takes place through demanding tasks and experiences. A further 20 per cent comes from targeted, detailed, professionally competent and timely feedback. The remaining 10 per cent is accounted for by training, instruction and coaching.

In the development meeting, five aspects, among others, are discussed with the candidate: the development goals, including from the superior’s point of view, the personal measures for developing the competences, challenging tasks in which the competences can be applied and developed further, people development measures such as coaching, and milestones and dates.

As part of development planning, the candidate is shown ways in which they can improve the competences to be developed themselves. This includes a targeted process of reflection intended to enable engagement with several questions. Do I know how I affect my environment and how my environment affects me? What impression do I leave on others, and is that the effect I intend?

Two further questions belong here. Which of my behaviours am I not aware of, in other words, where is my blind spot? Which of my behaviours could hinder my progress in the company?

On the basis of the development plan, a development programme can be drawn up. For new tasks and functions, it concentrates on successfully mastering the first 100 days.

The development programme begins with clarifying the assignment and extends over about six to nine months. During this time, qualification modules alternate with phases of everyday work. Each module is followed by support in real situations as well as feedback and reflection. At the end comes the final assessment. For transformis, a development programme involves three essential steps.

The first step is the qualification modules. Their topics arise from the development goals, the development planning and the meeting to clarify the assignment. Depending on requirements, the modules last one to three days. Example topics are strategy, with strategy development processes, strategy implementation and strategy review, and understanding of organisations. Further topics are leadership and change management, HR management and communication, especially in an intercultural context.

The second step is supporting and observing the candidate on the job, that is, in real situations. After each qualification module, the candidate should apply what they have learned in real situations. Where possible, the manager is accompanied in their everyday work. This means targeted feedback can be given afterwards, and both sides embark together on a reflection of what was observed.

The third step is the final assessment. At the end of the development programme, the overall process is evaluated. It is assessed to what extent the defined development goals and expectations have been met.

A new task or function brings particular challenges. If a manager is to take on such a task, a targeted development programme, the so-called 100-day programme, is advisable as an introduction. In this case, the development programme concentrates on successfully mastering the requirements of the new function.

The first step is the analysis of the stakeholders relevant to the candidate. Five questions, among others, must be answered. Who exerts formal or informal influence on me? Who provides resources that are particularly important to me? Who particularly needs me in order to meet their own interests or demands? On whom am I dependent every day? Who has an interest in my successful development?

Following Reinhart Nagel, the result can be presented as a map. On it, the stakeholders are arranged by importance and intensity, for example superiors, customers, suppliers, banks and internal units such as HR, communications, marketing and production.

As soon as the relevant stakeholders have been identified, a positioning paper is developed. In it, the candidate deals with four topics: the interests and possibilities of influence of the individual stakeholders, their own core messages regarding content, organisation and structure, values and HR, the immediate measures to be tackled with the highest priority, and possible plans for change.

The approach is divided into three phases, each consisting of preparatory work, work steps and a result. The first phase is the leadership assessment. In the preparatory work, the candidates for the assessment process and the feedback providers are identified and dates are agreed. This is followed by feedback interviews of about two and a half hours per feedback provider, the evaluation of the feedback data and the preparation of the expert report.

The expert report is handed first to the candidate and then to the superior before the facilitated feedback meeting takes place. The result of this phase is the identification of the candidate’s strengths and development needs. As a guideline for the effort involved, the concept gives four days per candidate.

The second phase is development planning. The facilitated feedback meeting is evaluated and development planning is prepared. The development goals are then defined and a development plan is drawn up with the candidate. At the end of this phase, the development goals are known. The effort is about one day per candidate.

The third phase is leadership development. The identified development goals and the development planning are evaluated. From this, an individual development programme for the candidate is created and presented, in the case of new positions as a 100-day programme. This is followed by the meeting with the candidate to clarify the assignment, the preparation and delivery of the qualification modules, support in everyday work with subsequent joint reflection, and the final evaluation.

The result of the third phase is the successful handling of development needs, successful positioning of the manager and an improved capacity for self-reflection. The effort depends on goals and content and is three to twelve days per candidate.

Several advantages are associated with the process for assessing and developing managers. First and foremost is a common language for leadership in the organisation. The clear descriptions of the competences make it possible to discuss, evaluate and, where necessary, develop behaviours.

Added to this is a non-trivialising description of a manager based on 86 competence descriptions. Feedback providers can give very differentiated feedback on the candidate’s observed strengths and development opportunities. This leads to high methodological acceptance among feedback providers and candidates.

The process creates transparency about a candidate’s strengths and development opportunities, measured against the company-specific requirements of the function or task. It enables the different pictures of the candidate’s strengths and development needs to be compared. A targeted development process can result from this.

The results meet with high acceptance on both sides, from the superior and from the candidate. The reason: the assessments are made from different perspectives and produce a coherent overall picture.

The process is an integrated system. On the basis of the organisational challenges, it enables a forecast of the most important leadership competences of the function or organisation. The competence descriptions are available in several languages, including English and Chinese, and are used internationally.

The development programme also brings its own advantages. The qualification modules are planned individually on the basis of the identified development goals, so that work is done on the relevant topics that are critical to success. Qualified consultants and coaches for different topics and situations increase the effectiveness of the development measures.

The interventions are based on many years of experience, have been tested internationally and are adapted to the candidate’s individual needs. Development is thus geared to the real situation and the personal challenges of everyday work.

An individually developed 100-day programme increases the prospect of success, especially in new and demanding leadership situations. The risk of follow-up costs due to failure or a lack of performance by the candidate falls significantly.