As a leader you might be used to draw on a 360-degree analysis to enforce your personal leadership. To look at your leadership through different eyes and thereby observe something you could not have caught sight of from your own perspective.
But what about your leadership team? What vital information would a 360-degree team analysis provide for you who are commonly responsible for running and developing your company?
3 ways to include the stakeholders
Including internal and external stakeholders and their view on your productive and relational team skills is equally essential to the continued development and common quality of your team as the individual 360-degree analysis is to your personal development as a leader.
There are many ways of including the experiences, thoughts and needs of your stakeholders. Here is three for inspiration:
- Invite stakeholders for a visit
- Game of chairs
- Use an online assessment
Ad 1) Invite stakeholders for a visit
If you invite your stakeholders to join your table and honestly ask their advice you can build a trustful relation that will provide the vital information you need to enlarge your own picture. It might be internal stakeholders such as employees, other parts of the company or the board of directors. It might also be external stakeholders such as key costumers, suppliers, partners or legal or advisory agencies.
Relevant questions could be:
- What is it our job to deliver?
- What are we currently doing right or wrong to fulfill our mission?
- What defines our collaboration internally and in relation to you?
- What should we learn to fulfill our mission in the future?
Ad 2) Game of chairs
You could also pretend to have a visit from your primary stakeholders when you host a leader team meeting. You will be surprised at how much new you will become aware of from adding some empty chairs around your table and in this way invite your stakeholders’ voices into the discussion.
If you take turns in occupying the “stakeholder-seat” it will help you to put yourself in the shoes of others and in this way discover things that you are usually blind to.
Ad 3) Use an online assessment
It can prove difficult to obtain precise, direct and relevant information from the outside world. Especially if you are at chief executive level. Too often the feedback is vague and indirect. Not concrete.
To overcome this obstacle an online based 360-degree team assessment could be the solution. I suggest “Team 360 View™” created by Team Coaching International.
It provides valuable information on how you are perceived – on several parameters – by those who you are often in contact with. Compared to visits or Game of chairs, the online test provides the opportunity to expand and clarify your questions to gain more knowledge in depth as well as on numerous subjects.
The assessment will provide a report from which you can begin your own discussion, or you can invite your stakeholders to take parts in the discussion based on the report.
New opportunity for learning and growth
By comparing your own opinions of the primary tasks, strengths and weaknesses of the leadership team with the results of the assessment a new and clearer picture of what already works and what needs improving to succeed as a leadership team occurs.
The goal is not simple bottom line but to reach the full potential. And you need help to see how!
This article is based on the thoughts and models by Team Coaching International and leadership expert Prof Peter Hawkins, respectively.