Self-awareness is a vital mindset for leaders, yet it can be difficult to curate without quality feedback as a type of mirror to make our performance visible. Informal feedback can be vague and hard to learn from. Formal feedback, on the other hand, is highly informative because it gives leaders enough detail to take specific action.
For example, simply pointing out that a leader needs to improve communication isn’t helpful because it is not focused on specific skill sets or areas of communication. The leader can not easily identify needed improvements or create an improvement plan to guide growth. It’s simply too vague.
Formal feedback, such as a 360-Degree Assessment, provides specific scores the leader can use for improvement. A leader who scores three out of five on effective listening and four out of five on persuasive communication can properly evaluate the results and learn they need to talk less and listen more. Feedback like this allows leaders to reflect on possible patterns and themes in the feedback and take action where needed.
Leaders can elevate self-awareness and get life-changing feedback during a formal process such as a 360-Degree Assessment. If you’ve been giving informal feedback to a leader without positive change, it may be time to take a more formal approach.