360 Leadership Surveys

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Importance of 360 Degree Feedback and definitions from Wikipedia:

In human resources or industrial/organizational psychology, 360-degree feedback, also known as multi-rater feedback, multisource feedback, or multisource assessment, is feedback that comes from all around an employee. "360" refers to the 360 degrees in a circle, with an individual figuratively in the center of the circle. Feedback is provided by subordinates, peers, and supervisors. It also includes a self-assessment and, in some cases, feedback from external sources such as customers and suppliers or other interested stakeholders. It may be contrasted with "upward feedback," where managers are given feedback by their direct reports, or a "traditional performance appraisal," where the employees are most often reviewed only by their managers.

The results from 360-degree feedback are often used by the person receiving the feedback to plan training and development. Results are also used by some organizations in making administrative decisions, such as pay or promotion. When this is the case, the 360 assessment is for evaluation purposes, and is sometimes called a "360-degree review." However, there is a great deal of controversy as to whether 360-degree feedback should be used exclusively for development purposes, or should be used for appraisal purposes as well (Waldman et al., 1998). There is also controversy regarding whether 360-degree feedback improves employee performance, and it has even been suggested that it may decrease shareholder value (Pfau & Kay, 2002).

History

The German Military first began gathering feedback from multiple sources in order to evaluate performance during World War II (Fleenor & Prince, 1997). Also during this time period, others explored the use of multi-rater feedback via the concept of T-groups.

One of the earliest recorded uses of surveys to gather information about employees occurred in the 1950s at Esso Research and Engineering Company (Bracken, Dalton, Jako, McCauley, & Pollman, 1997). From there, the idea of 360-degree feedback gained momentum, and by the 1990s most human resources and organization development professionals understood the concept. The problem was that collecting and collating the feedback demanded a paper-based effort including either complex manual calculations or lengthy delays. The first led to despair on the part of practitioners; the second to a gradual erosion of commitment by recipients.

Multi-rater feedback use steadily increased in popularity, due largely to the use of the Internet in conducting web-based surveys (Atkins & Wood, 2002). Today, studies suggest that over one-third of U.S. companies use some type of multi-source feedback (Bracken, Timmereck, & Church, 2001a). Others claim that this estimate is closer to 90% of all Fortune 500 firms (Edwards & Ewen, 1996). In recent years, Internet-based services have become the norm, with a growing menu of useful features (e.g., multi languages, comparative reporting, and aggregate reporting) (Bracken, Summers, & Fleenor, 1998).

Accuracy

A study on the patterns of rater accuracy shows that length of time that a rater has known the person being rated has the most significant effect on the accuracy of a 360-degree review. The study shows that subjects in the group “known for one to three years” are the most accurate, followed by “known for less than one year,” followed by “known for three to five years” and the least accurate being “known for more than five years.” The study concludes that the most accurate ratings come from knowing the person long enough to get past first impressions, but not so long as to begin to generalize favorably (Eichinger, 2004).

It has been suggested that multi-rater assessments often generate conflicting opinions, and that there may be no way to determine whose feedback is accurate (Vinson, 1996). Studies have also indicated that self-ratings are generally significantly higher than the ratings of others (Lublin, 1994; Yammarino & Atwater, 1993; Nowack, 1992).