Discuss the following:
This exercise intends to enable you to gather insight into your strengths, behaviors, how people experience working with you and relating to you, and any challenges they see you facing. Upon completion of this exercise, you will have a clearer sense of patterns and themes that capture people’s views about your strengths and challenges.
Exploring Leadership
Leadership Self-Study
A 360 Degree View
This exercise intends to enable you to gather insight into your strengths, behaviors, how people experience working with you and relating to you, and any challenges they see you facing. Upon completion of this exercise, you will have a clearer sense of patterns and themes that capture people’s views about your strengths and challenges.
Part I: Identification of Participants
Identify 4-6 people whose opinions you value and whom you believe you can interview about yourself. Selecting the appropriate people is an important part of the exercise. Identify people you know in different contexts, roles and relationships. A variety of perspectives helps you decipher lasting truths as you evaluate interviews and look for repeated patterns. People must be willing to talk openly with you – about you. They should know you.
As you ask people to participate, be sure to let them know that the purpose of this process is for you to gain insights that will enable you to become more of the person you want to be. You are doing this because you want to change and grow. This will enable them to feel more comfortable about being straightforward with their feedback. Most people enjoy helping others become a great person and leader. If you are open and honest, they will be as well.
Part II: Discussions
There are three goals for the conversations, and the order of priority presented here is important: 1) to strengthen the relationship you have with the person, 2) to fully hear the perspective and experience of the person you are interviewing, 3) to gather information about yourself that you may not be aware of, but that is important to the person you are interviewing. The purpose of the exercise is to gather information about yourself, and not to debate or try to adjust their views.
Setting up the Discussion
Develop a comfortable environment for the conversation, one in which there will be no interruptions. Review the purpose of the conversation, stating clearly that it is confidential and that you appreciate their candor and willingness to help you learn and grow. Review how the information shared with you will be used to help you develop. Take notes and let them know why you are taking notes. During the discussion, do not “lead the witness” or pursue your own ideas about yourself. Be intentionally open and follow a structure that will increase the chances that you will discover new truths about yourself.
Answer the following questions:
• What do you notice and experience as you interact and work with me?
• What are the 3 things you appreciate the most about me?
• What are the 3 things you would like me to do differently to be more effective?
Practice active listening and probe further as needed:
• Why is that important?
• How do you feel when I do ___?
• What is the impact on you?
• What impact do you think it has on others?
• Can you be more specific?
• Can you give me an example?
Use your social intelligence to gain their perspectives as opposed to your own experience of yourself. Eliminate your own filters and biases. Manage your emotions in the moment. Taking notes is important because you will need to review and analyze responses later. Note taking will help you stay focused and manage your emotions. It also prevents emotions from getting in the way of recall. Take notes with the intent of providing quotes to support themes.
Review the purpose of the interview and confidentiality, and finish by expressing your gratitude.
Part III: Analysis
Your next challenge is to look across the conversations for patterns and to be open to insights that provide you with a new way of understanding how you lead and impact people. This is termed thematic analysis.
Read all your interview notes (your “data”) several times. Make notes about possible themes you see across the interviews. Notice important concepts, observations, or ideas that are often repeated, or emotionally charged stories or insights. Also pay attention to the rare insights that are surprising, but hint at a truth.
What are people saying about your strengths and challenges? What patterns are there in people’s collective experience of you? Guard against your own personal biases.
Part IV: Report
Collect your themes into a report. This will include 4-6 major themes, and quotes that prove each theme to be true (one quote or perspective does not represent a theme). If you have a theme that is not raised by multiple people but is particularly insightful to you, it should still be captured on the report.
Write a paragraph or two about each theme, including evidence to support it, what it means to you, and why this is important.