Understanding Your Leadership ‘flaws’ with 360° Feedback

I believe great leaders succeed because they play to their strengths. They are extremely aware of them and know how to deploy them for their own advantage and for the benefit of their business. This enables them to successfully repeat their performance in different roles and organisations. However, in my view all leaders also have weaknesses, and these can inhibit a leaders’ success in their role. I remember many years ago I had a new boss who was young, energetic and full of good ideas. While my new boss was keen and clearly wanted to do the best for the business, he was very unaware of the impact his behaviour had on others. For example he: • Interrogated me about my budgeted overspend and expected me to come up with an urgent plan to correct the situation. On investigation I discovered that he had shifted a large spend onto my budget to make another part of the business appear more successful than it actually was. • Instructed me not to contradict him in public – he spoke to me about this when we were in the gents toilets together! • Did not listen other people properly, he was not interested in other people’s views, just his own. • Was insensitive to other people’s needs. • He was indiscrete and would tell stories about others as well as be overly critical about other people in public. The consequence of this was that many people didn’t trust or respect him, ironically an issue he often complained bitterly about! However, self awareness is rarely an innate talent that most people have. So how do leaders become more self aware of their ‘flaws’? Personally, I recommend using a leadership 360° feedback appraisal system to collect the views and opinions of bosses, peers and team members. My own personal experience of using leadership 360° feedback appraisal, is that it increased my self awareness enormously. For me one of the most powerful aspects of it was understanding what my team expected of me as a leader. As a manager you are used to setting expectations for your team, but not the other way round! It’s a shame that the boss I referred to earlier did not have the opportunity (or perhaps courage) to ‘look in the mirror’, because if he had done he would have seen his flaws and done something about them.