I think everyone that has done 360 feedback assessments remembers their first one. For me it was not long after I had made the transition from consulting over to sales in which I was selling consulting services. I was still pretty young in my career, and while I had some experience in managing people in previous roles, my current role was an individual contributor. I covered the northeast which was difficult but rewarding. I always said New Yorkers are some of the toughest but honest customers you can sell to. They help you “fail fast” because if you can’t get your value prop delivered in about 5 minutes, they are moving on! I was seeing a lot of early success in this role and decided in order to further my training I would register for an Executive Presence class. This class was really tailored to better prepare you on how to present and “show up” in front of senior leaders both internally and within customer prospects. As part of the pre-work, each student selected colleagues and leaders to conduct a confidential 360 survey about themselves. Oh boy, I was not expecting the type of feedback I received…

As I read the report, there was definitely part of me that was proud of the output and part of me that was frustrated with the results, or more specifically with the respondents because they just simply didn’t understand. Some of the feedback included:

1. Significant industry experience, looked upon as a thought leader in his area
2. Results driven
3. Distant, unapproachable
4. Does not allow others to share points of view towards a solution
5. Very much a “lone wolf” in problem solving, though he may be right most of the time does not allow others to help drive a group consensus

Now friends, I had such a blind spot for this feedback that I had convinced myself the respondents were not as smart as me, could not move at my pace or just jealous of my success. I even had the audacity to stand up and defend my results in the Executive Presence class citing that I took this feedback as positive because it meant that I was “saving the organization time and money” because I was able to get to the solution and result quicker than if I included others in the process. Needless to say, there were some eyes rolling in the classroom that day.

Additionally, my behaviors that I exhibited at work were also well on display at home. I was unapproachable, distant and less concerned about listening and more concerned around simply solving what I perceived as the problem. These behaviors both at work and at home were driving a wedge between colleagues and most importantly my loved ones. What I can share is there is no quick fix and change can only start when self-awareness kicks in. For me, this came in the form of my marriage continuing to deteriorate due, in part, to these behaviors which really drove me to self-reflect and seek some help and guidance through therapy and mentors. Happily, the result of that intervention enabled my wife and I to reconcile with one another and also equipped me with tools on how to better manage and improve upon my blind spots both at work and home.

Leadership Takeaways:

1. Humility as a leader is so important. Everyone uses the term “Strong Leadership” I think people translate that into you must be assertive and “force your will” on subordinates. Friends, in my experience it’s the exact opposite. It’s easy to stand on your soap box and declare what you deem as the right way, it takes strength, endurance and humility to really dig in deep with your team and leaders to understand what is really going on to drive success. As the analogy says the deeper you dig into the soil, that’s where you find diamonds.
2. Leadership is about listening more and problem solving less. Whether at work or especially at home what people need is someone who is going to honestly and authentically listen. They don’t always need a problem solver and quite frankly, in some cases, your need to solution may be outright offensive depending on how deeply personal or complex the problem may be.
3. Sometimes speed is the enemy of success. Getting everyone on board through driving consensus is really what drives teamwork that will return a better long term gain. But, with that said, part of consensus building is knowing when to go, I use the term “Disagree but commit.” As the leader, you must develop the skill to know when help the team to move on.

The most important thing to consider in these takeaways is each must be continuously nurtured and trained like exercise, and at many points in time you may take one step forward and two steps back or two steps forward and one step back. I still struggle with one or all of these things. As a life long introvert I am really good at distancing myself both when I feel frustrated or overwhelmed and something, to this day, that I actively work on through therapy. The most important thing is that you continue to do the work to improve.