One of the mysterious and exciting things when I work with people on a Leadership Development program is what will bring a change, a leap forward.
If I could name just one thing it would be attitude. If you care about your development, if you want to respond to feedback about you, then even if you have no idea how, nor maybe even understand some of the feedback you have been given, you will succeed by the desire to do so.
Curiosity is a key part of this attitude. Rather than wondering who said X about you on your 360 report, you seek to understand what they seeing about you, their experience of you. Despite what people sometimes think when we review their 360 report, hardly ever has someone given you feedback in your 360 report to be vindictive. They have had an experience of you and even if you can’t relate to it, this doesn’t take away from this being their experience of you.
People who are curious and so try to understand the feedback, will find a way to understand. They will put themselves in other shoes, they will ask questions of people they work with to learn more about their impact on others, they will take the 360 feedback not as an affront – even if it is disappointing or even hurtful – but as a precious clue that can lead to insight about themselves.
Back to many things in life, if you really want to you will.
If you want to understand your 360 feedback, you will get to a point where you see what others are seeing about you.
When you see what others are seeing about you, you can decide if you want to do something about it.
And if you want to do something about it, you will find a way. You might need to watch who does what you are wanting to change well – and see what you could adapt from their behavior. You might need to try different, less familiar, behaviors – in a way that is still authentic to you.
It might go wrong some days.
But with practice, you will succeed
