In the retail industry, it’s important to recognise that it’s not just the performance of your staff at head office that matters. Your store management teams need to be up to scratch too. After all, they’re the ones who look after your frontline staff, and it’s your frontline staff who ultimately are your main point of contact with your customers, the people who represent and sell your product to the general population every day.
Not only do store managers face daily leadership challenges, they also have a massive impact on customer experience. A common problem, however, is that you can’t be everywhere all the time, you can’t be in all your stores at once and you can’t monitor every customer or staff interaction. This makes it really difficult to control behaviour and to know what your customers experience at the hands of your staff.
Some leading retailers are finding that conducting 360 reviews for store managers and supervisors is an invaluable way of getting the true picture of what’s happening on the shop floor. Cascading the 360 process through to this level of the organisation is helping them to identify exactly how well their store managers are performing, where staff and customer expectations could be improved and what development programmes they need to put in place to ensure that profits and performance continue to climb.
In a 360 review, each participant rates their own performance and receives feedback from a collection of managers, peers, direct reports and sometimes even customers. This comprehensive review gives individuals insight into how their behaviour, actions and attitude are perceived by those around them.
Managing performance in a retail environment poses a few unique challenges. One of the most valuable aspects of conducting online 360 reviews in the retail industry is that staff can access the online questionnaire at any time that suits them. Even when they are interrupted, the next time they log on they are automatically taken back to their last completed question until the whole questionnaire is completed. Online systems will also send gentle reminders to any stragglers, making the process much easier than a traditional paper based approach.
In a sector always looking for a differentiator, our flexible 360 solution could be the innovative tool you need to gain a competitive edge - contact us today to see how we can develop a solution that helps you keep the tills ringing while you monitor and manage performance effectively.
Developing rising stars is an important role for managers and for the future of any company. Succession planning should be an integral and key part of any organisation’s corporate strategy. It is essential for organisations to equip young talent with the skills and knowledge they need to become future managers and leaders. Learning from those who are already in leadership positions will assist with instilling the right kind of leadership culture within the organisation.
Learning from first-hand experience
Education, classes and seminars are great, but nothing beats real hands on experience. Rising stars benefit from ‘learning by doing’ from those around them about the business and the industry they work in. Managers should set aside time to show future talent how to perform the key functions they will need to grasp to assume a leadership role in future. Regular coaching will help new talent develop their soft and technical skills.
Be an example
By being a role model for rising stars, current leaders can show them what they need to become an effective leader. Most leaders can think back to someone who had a great influence on them that made them a better manager. When a mentor or role model works well under pressure, young leaders can see how they too should cope with difficult challenges.
Let them feel the pressure
Seasoned leaders know that being able to handle a crisis is one of the most important developmental experiences rising stars need. Allowing rising stars to observe their mentors during crises helps them to understand how they should behave in these circumstances.
When they’re ready, allowing young talent to handle a crisis on their own is even more effective. By letting them call the shots from the driving seat, young leaders get to develop composure under pressure and you get to see exactly how well your future leaders will cope in difficult situations.
Learning from failure
Failures bring opportunities for improvement and growth. By learning from mistakes we are far less likely to make them again. It’s important that your young leaders are given enough leeway to make the mistakes they need to grow and develop (obviously without bringing your whole organisation to its knees!)
A 360 review process can be an invaluable component of any organisation’s talent development strategy. Regular reviews and feedback from the people they work with can help junior leaders understand exactly how their behaviours are perceived by those around them.
Download our free white paper ‘Why Use 360 Degree Feedback’ for more insight into how a 360 process may benefit your organisation.
When it comes to leadership development, it can be difficult to know what to look for and how to look for it. Many of the competencies and traits associated with being a leader are somewhat intangible and difficult to gauge. Using a 360 feedback tool to gather the opinions of many people, however, can be an ideal way to help you understand how well the leaders in your organisation perform on some of the more intangible competencies.
Here are some ways you can use 360 feedback to unmask the competencies of your leaders:
Visionary
Good leaders develop a clear roadmap of where they want the organisation to go in the future. They encourage people in the organisation to buy into and implement their vision. 360 degree feedback can make it easier to spot the visionaries amongst your staff and to highlight which leaders are able to get key members of your organisation to buy into a shared vision.
Likeable
An often overlooked competency because new managers often want to be liked too much, but likeability is not to be underestimated. Good leaders are often people-centric. ‘Likeable’ leaders are more easily able to drum up enthusiasm for a shared vision. Employees are more willing to follow and work for a leader they like, which has a positive impact on productivity and morale. 360 reviews can help to identify how much influence your leaders yield in an organisation.
Tactical
Good leaders are committed to results. They flourish with facts, figures, numbers and data. They are concerned with complicated-sounding acronyms like ROI, ROE and EBIDTA. 360 feedback helps leaders understand where their own deficiencies are and to identify people in their organisation who can complement their own skill sets if necessary.
Focused
Good leaders achieve what they set out to do. By contrast, poor leaders may have dozens of conflicting projects and priorities. A 360 review after a project will highlight how successful a leader has been during that project. It can help answer questions like: Were they focused? Did they meet deadlines? Did they meet their objectives?
Open to feedback
Good leaders are open and dedicated to lifelong learning. They seek feedback about their performance, both through direct conversations and through other tools. 360 reviews provide a useful mechanism for gathering and analysing feedback from a range of colleagues, peers and managers into a single report that provides a comprehensive view of performance.
Over and above its contribution to leadership development, 360 feedback can have many uses.
Download our free white paper Why Use 360 Degree Feedback for a comprehensive review of how 360 feedback can benefit your organisation.
Are leaders born or are can leadership be taught?
Some say leaders are born, while some are convinced that leaders can be groomed if they are committed to developing the requisite skills. Many believe that the following elements should be at the core of any budding leader:
1. Is the individual ‘results orientated?’
Leaders must be able to set goals and determine priorities that lead to results. Leaders who produce results not only drive value to the business, but increase their value to the organisation. Leaders need to have a ‘can do’ attitude and see obstacles as challenges to overcome rather than stumbling blocks.
2. How effective are their communication skills?
True leaders can communicate at all levels. They can distil their message, however complex it may be, to something that is accessible to those who may not share their knowledge or background.
Keeping the message simple and saying things in a few words without rambling, is the mark of a leader who really has mastered the art of communication. Less is definitely more. The world’s greatest leaders have a talent for simplicity: they are articulate and can convey complicated concepts in a few phrases.
3. The art of persuasion and influence
Good leadership skills include the ability to inject huge doses of enthusiasm into a team or individual. Leaders are generally energetic in driving others forward.
Leaders must often ‘sell’ their ideas to others. Having the skills to accomplish this can mark the difference between success and failure as many projects or initiatives require buy-in from others.
4. Ability to adapt to change
Objectives and goals change and new tasks and new responsibilities are inevitable in every project or initiative. Change is a natural part of business. Leaders must be able to adapt to change and use their persuasive power to lead staff through change.
5. The ability to recover from failure
Projects often run into glitches. Problems are inevitable. However the mark of a good leader is not how they respond when the going is easy, but rather how they handle a crisis situation and turn adversity into triumph.
Can you identify potential new leaders in your organisation who already demonstrate some of these skills? If not, implementing a 360 degree review process may be exactly what you need to help you identify your leaders of the future.
Download our free white paper Top 10 Tips for Running a 360 Degree Feedback Project to help you get started.
The senior leadership team is a very important group in any organisation. They have the most overt power. Their decisions have implications for everyone else in the organisation and for the future of the organisation itself. Many people strive for admission to that ‘elite table’, but there is often a poor understanding of what makes leadership teams effective.
This raises the questions of what role leadership teams should play within their organisations and where they should focus their efforts.
Edwin Cornelius wrote the following in his paper on ‘How Leadership Teams Should Operate’:
‘Typically, a leadership team operates in two ways: they work as staff members, dealing with a variety of issues involved in running a business unit from a day to day perspective. In addition, a leadership team should operate as a strategic group dealing with the longer term issues of survival, growth, and continuous improvement.’
One of the pitfalls of leadership teams is that they get so caught up in the day-to-day issues of running a business that they leave very little time for dealing with strategic issues.
Continually in Crises mode
Leadership teams often focus on the ‘urgent’ issues facing the business, at the expense of working on the ‘important’ issues that will improve day-to-day operations in the long run.
Leadership teams may become consumed by moving from one crisis to the next. While they may understand how dysfunctional their behaviour is, they may not be able to break the cycle of constantly dealing with the urgent but not important situations that face the business.
When creating a leadership team, it helps to:
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Include the right people on the team
Many organisations include too many people or the wrong people in the leadership team. Research has shown that it is more effective to have a leadership team of four people than one of eight.
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Ensure the credibility of team members
Leadership effectiveness is directly correlated to leadership credibility. The extent to which leaders are credible within the organisation will determine how engaged staff members are in achieving organisational success.
Employees view their senior leadership team as effective if it responds quickly to marketplace opportunities and competitive threats. In addition, those leaders that keep employees well-informed about organisational issues are also likely to gain the faith of their employees at all levels.
Employees with positive opinions of their leadership team state a much higher intention to stay with the organisation compared to those who are dissatisfied. They are also much more likely to have confidence in the organisation’s prospects and more likely to feel that they have a promising future career within the organisation.
In trying to identify the characteristics that are right for your leadership team, it can help to ask some or all of these questions:
- Do your leaders ‘walk the talk?’
- Do they trust each other?
- Do they collaborate cross-functionally?
- How do they communicate?
- Are they able to talk about sensitive topics?
- How do they make decisions?
- Do they hold one another accountable?
- How well do they balance daily urgencies against the long-term development of the organisation?
- Are they effective at working out inevitable conflicts and competing priorities?
A 360 feedback process can be effective at helping you to understand what your staff think of how well the leadership team is performing. In a 360 review process, you can ask these questions – and any others relevant to your organisation – quickly and easily of as many groups or teams you wish to consult. Not only will this help to give HR Management a clear sense of what’s happening internally, it also helps each individual leader to identify their strengths, and where they could focus development efforts.
Download our free white paper ‘Top 10 Tips for Running a 360 Degree Feedback Project’ for more information on implementing 360 reviews in your organisation.
Great leaders are often considered to be charismatic, big picture visionaries who have a range of impressive skills. While there’s no doubt that good leaders need many skills in their armoury, one of the most important requirements of a good leader is their ability to communicate at all levels.
Many of the world’s greatest leaders have a talent for simplicity. They are articulate and able to convey complicated concepts in a few phrases. No matter how complex the message, good leaders can distil it to something that is accessible to those who may not share their knowledge or background.
Keeping the message simple and saying things in a few words, without rambling, is the mark of a leader who really has mastered the art of communication. Less is definitely more.
In addition, good leaders have a firm grasp of their audience. They position their conversation appropriately and appreciate who they are talking to. Whether they’re talking up or down the organisation, they can do so in a way that doesn’t feel condescending, patronising or superficial.
Nothing but the truth
Good leaders have the capacity to tell the hard truth, even when it’s really difficult. Being able to tell the truth (sensitively and compassionately, of course, if that’s what is needed) helps people to cope with the realities of change and to move forward in tricky situations. Good leaders are able to convey things people might not want to hear in a way that at least gets the message through, even if it’s not initially welcomed.
An essential contributor to overall effectiveness
Being able to communicate effectively is a key part of a leaders’ overall effectiveness. To assess the effectiveness of the leadership in your organisation, it’s important that you can understand how well your leaders communicate.
One way to do this is to ask your staff members to evaluate their leaders’ communication competencies using a 360 feedback tool. These tools can be designed to measure the competencies that are relevant in your organisation so that you always have your finger on the pulse of what’s most important to you.
Download our free white paper "Top 10 Tips For Running a 360 Degree Appraisal Project" for ideas on how to implement a 360 degree review process in your organisation.
In his book, The 360-Degree Leader, John C. Maxwell asserts that you can learn to develop your influence from wherever you are in the organisation by becoming a 360 degree leader. By helping others, he maintains, 360 degree leaders help themselves.
Maxwell identifies three principles to help leaders bring value and influence to and from every level of the organization:
1: Lead-Up
Leading up is the process of influencing a leader. This process includes lightening the leader’s load by being willing to do what others won’t, while knowing when to push forward and when to back off.
2: Lead-Across
Leaders in the middle of an organization are leaders of leaders. These leaders help peers achieve positive results, let the best idea win, and garner mutual respect. These leaders must develop and maintain credibility, and continually exert influence.
3: Lead-Down
Leaders at the top who lead down help others realise their potential, become a strong role model and encourage others to become part of a higher purpose. This involves walking through the halls, transferring the vision, and rewarding for results.
This may work well in an organisation which has been running for years and where the review process runs like a well-oiled machine. However in an organisation where the culture of 360 degree feedback is still in its developmental stages, these potential pitfalls could cause the 360 degree system to become dysfunctional:
- The 360 degree process can be seen as another ‘flavour of the month’ initiative that will ultimately not be used to effect any real change or improvement. In this case, employees won't take the time or make the effort to provide reasoned, objective, honest and actionable feedback.
- Where trust is lacking, employees can doubt the anonymity of the exercise and give questionable feedback.
- Where speaking up is not valued, disgruntled employees may take the opportunity to take out their negative feelings about the company or management on the person they have been asked to review, blasting them with inappropriate, demoralising or inaccurate ratings and comments.
Good leaders should assist in driving a 360 review process that is valuable because it collects relevant, accurate and honest information. By establishing an expectation of transparency and trust well before the survey is implemented, those who are asked to participate in the 360 process will want to take the time to provide thoughtful and honest feedback. If leaders are open to receiving and acting on feedback, employees will know that their thoughts will be welcomed and taken seriously and they will be encouraged to participate.
Download our free white paper 13 Appraisal Taboos for more ideas on how not to implement a 360 degree review process,
360 degree feedback is a valuable tool for supporting leadership development. A 360 review process provides tools and understanding that allow organisations to manage the performance of their leader’s better, which is critical to achieving and sustaining success.
In order to increase performance and profitability, it is essential that leaders get feedback from those with whom they come into contact regularly. Staff, clients and stakeholders can be effective sources of insight that make the difference between leaders being extraordinary instead of just plain ordinary.
As part of the 360 process, it is important to identify leadership behaviours that fit into the culture of the organisation as these behaviours will be crucial in driving the strategy and vision of an organisation forward. Using 360 feedback to measure your leadership team against these behaviours can create a powerful and constructive set of insights as to where the leaders of your organisation are adding value and where there are development areas.
Where organisations are focused on building a culture of upward momentum, 360 reviews can help leaders focus on achieving their full potential. By gathering feedback from a range of stakeholders, 360 reviews help leaders to understand how they are seen by those around them in and out of the organisation. This helps them gain clarity on how the behaviour affects those at work and to understand where they need to focus time and effort on developing their leadership skills.
A leadership team’s positive experience with the process can have a ripple effect on other employees in the organisation as they see success being achieved because of the actions that result from the process. It is therefore important to understand that 360 degree feedback should not be a stand-alone event, but part of a comprehensive leadership and development programme.
In our free white paper ’13 Appraisal Taboos’, we look at other key issues that should be avoided when implementing 360 reviews.
Download ’13 Appraisal Taboos’ today and make sure your 360 review process supports your leadership development programmes as constructively as possible.
People are not all born with the ability to lead. Every leader is different and varying personal traits and characteristics can either help or hinder a person’s leadership effectiveness. 360 feedback is a useful tool that can help potential leaders identify their blind spots and key strengths.
The traditional concept of a leader being the ‘directing chief’ at the top of a hierarchy is an incomplete picture of what true leadership is now. Today, good leaders should be an enabling force, helping people and organisations to perform and develop. Good leaders are able to align people's needs with and organisational objectives.
A common misconception in a corporate environment is that Leadership and Management are one and the same thing. When someone is promoted to a management position, it may be because they are good at their job, but it doesn’t automatically make them an effective leader.
Good leaders are followed chiefly because people trust and respect them.
Good leaders have a motivation to learn and a strong drive and desire to achieve. Personal characteristics such as openness to experience, internal focus and self-monitoring are also traits seen in effective leaders.
Leadership potential is not a skill that can be developed in a single day of training. Rather, a development programme needs to be followed that allows the future leader to encounter a set of experiences over a period of time that will assist in shaping their leadership ability. At the outset, it’s important that goals are set that will shape the leadership development experience. A 360 degree review can provide a useful assessment of key development needs and help to identify the activities each individual needs exposure to.
Some of these may include:
- Experiential classroom style programs
- Business school style coursework
- Executive coaching
- Reflective journaling
- Mentoring and more.
An effective leadership development process allows organisations to create results-oriented, people-focused leaders that improve performance, increase retention and morale, and deliver bottom-line results. 360 feedback can play a valuable role in that process.
For more insights into how 360 feedback can help you develop leadership potential in your organisation, download our free white paper ‘Why Use 360 Degree Feedback’.
360-degree feedback provides a modern model for performance appraisal. It is based on the
idea that anonymous feedback from multiple sources will be superior to direct feedback from a single source. The advantage of 360-degree feedback is that it helps to overcome false perceptions and blind spots that can exist in more usual performance assessments.
In 360 assessments, the anonymity of the review process means reviewers tend to be open and honest so you can really get the inside track on your employees’ performance.
If you consider traditional feedback models and then the potential of getting feedback from multiple sources in the person’s circle of influence, it’s easy to see how 360 feedback could help you gain a balanced and fair review.
In today’s modern organisations where matrix and team working is now the norm rather than the exception, 360 reviews help managers and team leaders to assess how their team members are performing, even if they do not themselves have all the technical skills each team member has individually. Because feedback can be included from several parts of an organisation, or from several teams with which each employee is involved, the overall picture of each individual’s performance is far more comprehensive than a review conducted solely with an individual’s immediate line manager. This gives managers a better chance of identifying strengths and weaknesses in all areas of a team member’s performance.
Using all the information produced by a 360 review process, participants can draw up wide-ranging personal development plans that allow them to identify several development areas. This makes it easier for managers to ensure that all development objectives for their direct reports are aligned with organisational goals and thus contributing to improved organisational performance overall.
Overall, 360 degree feedback is a very effective way to gain the inside track on performance levels in your organisation.
For more insight into other benefits that can be derived from implementing a 360 review process, download our free white paper ‘Why Use 360 Degree Feedback’.