Great coaching stretches, stimulates and provokes people to want to develop themselves; building their confidence and their ability to add value to their business. Leadership 360 assessment instruments are now widely used and accepted as a vital element within a successful coaching programme, and often play a vital role inspiring leaders and potential leaders on their pathway towards success.
These 360 tests are primarily used to help individuals build self-awareness in order to enhance leadership performance at work. Many of the coaching clients we have introduced to our preferred instrument – The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) tell us that the 360 process:
- Raises their awareness around their individual style, preference and capabilities
- Opens up new avenues for discussion with their coach
- Helps them to explore and identify their strengths and weaknesses
- Provides a meaningful and robust framework for providing feedback, goal setting and action planning
- Helps them to review progress in their leadership performance
- Enables them to openly discuss the impact of their behaviour on others
Understandably, receiving feedback from peers, direct reports and managers can be a daunting prospect but those who have experienced the LPI 360 process have found that it can act as a powerful and motivational force for future development. This is partly due to the robust, evidence-based LPI process which has been honed over many years to the point at which it has very strong reliability and test, re-test validity.
The role of the coach is to encourage the individual to reflect on their feedback and then highlight opportunities to practice and grow. We are emphatic around the value of action planning and suggest that if the client does not have a written plan of action then they have not been engaged in coaching. The emphasis here is on ‘doing’ in order that the client can build momentum on their path to success, and return to their LPI for fresh insights as required.
