New Leaders: Do This After 45 Days
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Something very simple but extremely effective that every organization should put into effect is a 360 degree leadership orientation for new leaders.
Every new leader should do a 360 review with their team about 45 (ish) days in their role.
Whenever someone becomes a new leader of a team, whether they've been promoted or moved into that role, or they’ve been hired from the outside, one of the easiest ways to establish trust and set everyone up for success is to come together and do a 360 for the leader.
If you are not familiar with, or don't know how to facilitate a 360, there are a million free models with advice and great questions out there with a quick Google search about how to do it effectively. Basically, you come together with the whole team and gather some comprehensive feedback about what is or isn’t working great, as well as highlight the biggest strengths and areas of opportunity for the leader to improve.
The leader can do it themselves, but generally it’s more effective to have someone else facilitate the process from outside of the team. It could be another leader within the organization, ideally it would be done by that leader’s leader, which gives the team a chance to interact with them as well.
There are many ways to go about this. Here’s a quick, 5 step model that I use when facilitating a 360, I learned of this from an HR colleague and think it works really well. In this version, the first 4 steps all happen in the same day.
The entire team, including the leader, will meet to discuss the whole process and desired outcomes, and answer any questions people have.
The facilitator will meet with the entire team, without the leader, to ask direct questions and facilitate gathering feedback from the team. Depending on the size of the team or the overall context, these questions could be collected through a survey as well. Don’t just wing it, do research; ask real, meaningful, direct and specific questions.
Just the facilitator and the leader meet, the facilitator will share and go over the feedback, common themes, and filter/condense the feedback that came from the team. This is nice because it gives the leader a chance to hear the feedback and have a moment to process or react to it without being on the spot in front of the whole team, and think about how they want to respond.
The entire team, including the leader, will come together again. The leader will share what they heard and ask any deeper, clarifying questions to make sure they understand and everyone is in alignment with context and clarity about the feedback. This is a time for the leader to just listen and absorb all the feedback, not to problem solve or defend, just to listen, understand, and for everyone to gain clarity.
The leader will have a day to absorb and digest the feedback, and then the entire team will come together one last time for the leader to share their reflections and all adjustments that they will make moving forward, and decide when the team will revisit any items that require it.
“ This works best when there is zero ego involved.”
The most important elements of doing a 360 like this are that the team feels 100% safe giving completely honest feedback, and that the leader truly wants to hear how they can be better. This works best when there is zero ego involved. As with all other things regarding great leadership, leaders with high EQ and a growth mindset thrive in this process and make it successful for themselves and the team.
There are many benefits to this, here are three reason why organization should adopt this and make it mandatory:
1) It gives the team an opportunity to voice what is and isn’t working, and gives the leader an opportunity to improve, address concerns, and add clarity.
“When people feel listened to and like their experience is valued, they perform better in their jobs, are more loyal to their companies, and stay longer.”
The process empowers members of the team to have a voice. When people feel listened to and like their experience is valued, they perform better in their jobs, are more loyal to their companies, and stay longer.
This is a very simple way to bring the team together to say, “What do we love (and not love) about this leader and their leadership style?” Having somebody else facilitate the process is wonderful because it gives the chance to filter some of those comments and provide some outside perspective to the process.
2) It is an avenue to start things off on the right track, and keep them there.
As teams learn each other, and employees learn new leaders, it's a great way to make sure that people have a deeper understanding of one another. Everyone leads a little differently and when teams can have transparent conversations about how things feel, it adds clarity and empathy, which greatly reduces people making assumptions based on styles or behaviors.
It also sets the tone for a culture of feedback and normalizes teams having conversations about how they can improve. When leaders model being open and vulnerable enough to ask for and utilize feedback, it makes everyone on the team more receptive to receiving and giving helpful feedback.
3) It sets up the team and the leader to succeed.
Doing a 360 is a great way to build rapport and trust, and for the team to see how the new leader will respond to tension or potential conflicts. When leaders are skillful about receiving feedback and respond gracefully, it goes a long way towards employees feeling like their leader actually cares about them and has their back.
“When leaders are skillful about receiving feedback and respond gracefully, it goes a long way towards employees feeling like their leader actually cares about them and has their back.”
This is a chance for the leader to be appreciative of the team’s honesty and respond with, “Thank you, I heard what you said, these are the changes that I'm going to make,” or, “I'm taking these things to heart, here is a deeper understanding of where I'm coming from and who I am as a leader.”
All in all, it reinforces the truth that everyone is in it together, that leaders aren’t infallible, and that no one is exempt from continuing to learn and striving to be better.
In my opinion, every team and organization should adopt this tradition immediately. It's so simple, doesn’t cost a dime, and pays great dividends towards having a great environment, more cohesive teams, and exceptional culture.
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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop
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