That pattern is not a personality flaw. It is a design flaw. The 360 feedback follow-up window is short, and most organizations leave the leader to figure out what to do with the report alone. The first 30 days after results land decide whether the assessment moves the needle or quietly becomes another document.

The pattern is consistent enough to have been studied at scale. The largest piece of research on what separates leaders who change after feedback from leaders who don’t lands on a single variable, and it isn’t motivation or talent. It’s what happens in the weeks after the report.

Why the first 30 days of 360 feedback follow-up matter most

The research on this is clearer than most leaders realize. In a study of roughly 86,000 managers across eight large organizations, Marshall Goldsmith and Howard Morgan found one variable that explained who improved after a feedback event and who didn’t: whether the leader actually followed up with the people who had given them the ratings. Leaders who discussed their priorities with co-workers, then checked back in regularly, showed striking gains in perceived effectiveness. Leaders who skipped that step showed almost none. The finding held in U.S. and non-U.S. organizations alike. (Source: “Leadership Is a Contact Sport,” Strategy+Business, 2004.)

That visible work has a half-life. Attention to the report drops sharply once the debrief conversation ends. New work crowds in. The emotional charge that made the report feel important fades. By week six, the leader is back to default behavior. The 30-day window is when the report still has gravity. After that, momentum is gone.

So the operating question for an L&D team is not whether the leader read the report. It is whether the leader spent the next 30 days doing something visible with it. Most do not. Three failure patterns explain why.

The three ways the window gets wasted

Three failure patterns show up again and again in how leaders handle a 360 report.

• Defensive reading. The leader fixates on the one comment that stings, debates whether the rater was qualified, and exits the report angry. Action never starts.
• Perfectionist paralysis. The leader sees five or six competencies that need work, tries to address all of them, and addresses none. Without a tight focus, the work stalls.
• Isolated processing. The leader keeps the results private, processes them alone, and never tells anyone what they are working on. Without an audience, accountability evaporates.

Each pattern is rational at the individual level and corrosive at the program level. None of them get fixed by giving the leader a longer report or a more polished dashboard. They get fixed with structure.

A five-step framework for the first 30 days

Here is a five-step framework built around what the research suggests. It is intentionally simple, because the most common failure mode is doing nothing. The order matters.

1. Start with a real debrief. A 360 feedback report is not a self-service document. Looking at it cold, on a screen, alone is the fastest way to misread it. A trained debrief, whether led by an executive coach, an external advisor, or an internal facilitator who has run the conversation before, does work the report cannot do on its own. It puts the lowest-rated comment in context. It surfaces patterns the leader’s eyes will skip on a first read. It turns defensiveness into curiosity. Strongly recommended for repeat recipients, required for first-timers. Skipping the debrief is the fastest path to one of the three failure patterns above.

2. Sit with it. For the first 24 to 48 hours after the debrief, it’s ok to feel the feedback, not act on it. Read the report once, set it down, and come back to it the next day with a clearer head. The first emotional reaction is almost never the most useful one. Defensive readings soften. Patterns that did not show up on a single pass start to surface on a second.

3. Pick up to three. From the patterns the report surfaces, pick no more than three behaviors to work on. One is plenty. Three is the cap. Past three, focus dilutes and nothing gets enough reps to change. The criterion is leverage: which behavior changes would most affect how the leader is perceived by the rater groups whose perceptions matter most. Sometimes those line up with the lowest-rated competencies. Often they don’t. Each behavior also has to be specific enough to act on this week (“ask one open-ended question in every 1:1 before jumping to advice”), not abstract (“be a better listener”).

4. Tell three people. Share the chosen behaviors, out loud, with three people whose feedback shows up in the report: typically a manager, a peer, and a direct report. This is enrollment work. The leader is recruiting accountability partners and giving them permission to flag what they see. The script is simple: “Here is what I am working on for the next 30 days. I would like your eyes on it.” That single conversation, repeated three times, signals that the report did something. This is the step leaders skip most, usually because it feels awkward. Skipping it is where the change quietly stops.

5. Schedule the first check-in. Before the 30 days start, put a 30-minute meeting on the calendar at day 30 with one of those three people. The agenda is one question: “What have you noticed?” That question, asked of a rater who knows what the leader has been working on, produces more useful feedback than another full assessment. It also forces the leader to do the work, because someone is going to ask. Treat day 30 as the start of an ongoing rhythm, not the finish line. Real change usually plays out over quarters, with check-ins repeating every four to six weeks for as long as the work continues.

Five steps is enough. Each one does work the others can’t, and skipping any of them is the most common reason follow-up fails.

What this means for L&D teams

The implication for the program side is straightforward. The first 30 days cannot be left to the leader to manage alone. Building the structure into the program is the difference between an assessment that produces a report and an assessment that produces behavior change.

In practice, that looks like a few things on the program side. The debrief gets resourced and scheduled, with coaching support for first-time recipients rather than left as an optional add-on. The leader leaves the debrief with a small, named set of committed behaviors (no more than three), not a vague list. The first check-in lives on the program calendar, not the leader’s optional to-do list. And the rhythm of follow-up check-ins continues past day 30 for as long as the work is real.

The report is not the deliverable. The change is.

The first 30 days put development in motion

The 360 cycle that begins with launch and ends with a published report is the assessment cycle. The development cycle is longer, often quarters rather than weeks, and the first 30 days are about putting it in motion: getting a real debrief, choosing a focus, enrolling accountability partners, and opening the rhythm of check-ins. Real behavior change rarely shows up by day 30. What shows up by day 30 is whether the conditions for change have been built.

We’re biased, but we believe a 360 program that ends at the report has only run the first half. The development half stretches across the months that follow, and it has to be engineered with the same care a good vendor brings to survey design and rater selection.

If your program ends when the report is delivered, the next conversation is worth having. Our team partners with L&D and HR leaders to design assessments that close the loop between feedback and behavior change. More on the approach: truscore.com/360-feedback-coaching/.

This is where 360 feedback becomes powerful. And uncomfortable.

Why 360 Feedback Hits Differently

Unlike traditional performance reviews, 360 feedback doesn’t rely on a single perspective or moment in time. It aggregates perceptions from the people who experience a leader’s behavior day after day.

When multiple raters independently point to the same strengths—or the same gaps—it reduces ambiguity and removes plausible deniability.

In other words:

• One comment can be brushed off
• One low score can be explained away
• A consistent pattern across rater groups cannot

This is often the moment leaders realize the feedback isn’t about intent—it’s about impact.

Why Leaders Resist Honest 360 Feedback

Resistance is rarely about arrogance. More often, it stems from:

• Identity threat – feedback conflicts with how leaders see themselves
• Context blindness – leaders don’t experience the downstream impact of their behavior
• Success bias – past results make it hard to question current habits

Without structured reflection and support, leaders may dismiss feedback as unfair, inaccurate, or politically motivated.

That’s why how feedback is delivered—and supported—matters as much as the data itself.

Turning Uncomfortable Truths Into Growth

Honest 360 feedback only creates value when it leads to behavior change. Organizations that pair feedback with structured follow-up—such as coaching and development planning—see far stronger outcomes. (Related: Wrapped Up Your 360 Assessment—What’s Next?) At TruScore, effective development starts with three principles:

1. Clarity Over Volume

Feedback should surface the few patterns that matter most, not overwhelm leaders with noise. Research consistently shows that overly complex reports reduce engagement and follow-through. (Learn more: Why Do-It-Yourself 360s Fail)

2. Context Before Action

Leaders need help interpreting why patterns exist before jumping to solutions.

3. Ongoing Reinforcement

Real change happens through follow-up, coaching, and continued feedback—not a one-time report. This is why many organizations integrate 360 feedback into broader leadership development and coaching initiatives. (Explore: Unlocking the 360 Assessment Process)

When leaders feel supported rather than judged, they are far more likely to lean into the truth instead of resisting it.

Why This Moment Matters

The most valuable insight in a 360 report is often the one a leader least wants to see.

Handled well, that insight becomes a turning point:

• Stronger self-awareness
• More intentional leadership behavior
• Increased trust and engagement

Handled poorly, it becomes another ignored document.

360 feedback doesn’t force change—but it creates a mirror that’s hard to look away from.

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Frequently Asked Questions About 360 Feedback

What makes 360 feedback more credible than manager-only reviews?
360 feedback combines multiple perspectives, reducing individual bias and highlighting consistent behavior patterns.

How should leaders respond to negative 360 feedback?
Start with curiosity. Look for themes, seek clarification through coaching, and focus on small, observable behavior changes.

Can 360 feedback damage confidence?
Poorly delivered feedback can. Well-designed and well-supported 360 feedback builds self-awareness and long-term confidence.

Evidence Behind the Most Common Truths Leaders Avoid

The leadership themes surfaced in 360 feedback are consistently supported by research and large-scale assessment data:

• Communication gaps and clarity issues are among the most common blind spots identified through multi-rater feedback, where leaders overestimate how clearly expectations are communicated (Center for Creative Leadership, STAR 360 Feedback).
• Unintended behaviors and blind spots—such as appearing defensive, impatient, or unapproachable—frequently emerge because leaders experience intent, while others experience impact (STAR 360 Feedback).
• Silence mistaken for alignment is a well-documented organizational phenomenon. Employees may withhold input due to psychological safety concerns, which 360 feedback surfaces (Wikipedia: Employee silence).
• Strengths becoming limitations is common, where traits that drove prior success (decisiveness, urgency, independence) later hinder collaboration (Leapsome).
• Self–other perception gaps are consistently observed in 360 data, highlighting areas for growth in self-awareness (Center for Creative Leadership).

These findings reinforce why consistent patterns across rater groups are so difficult—and so important—for leaders to ignore.

Final Thought

The truth revealed in 360 feedback is rarely new. It’s usually familiar—but finally undeniable.

That moment of recognition is where leadership growth begins.

Look, we get it, after years of managing and maintaining your systems, chasing down issues and scrambling just to keep up with the latest trends, you end up spending too much time and money on the tech side of the business, and not enough time and focus on your core business, which is surely where your real expertise and passions lie. And yet, many firms seem stuck in this very scenario. For those who are trying to be both a software company and a leadership development company this article explores 3 reasons why it’s more critical than ever to re-think your firm’s identity.

One: Checkers is now Chess

While terms like “hosting” and “in the cloud” are used in nearly all aspects of business technology today, they simply didn’t exist back when many assessment companies were looking to move assessments online. This was near the end of the golden era of paper surveys and Scantron machines; it was a time when Software as a Service (SaaS) or even Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) just weren’t a thing. So, when assessments began migrating away from paper and towards the web, assessment companies (at least those who wanted to survive) took the logical step of building out their own platforms. These weren’t companies carefully weighing the options of build vs. outsource; there was only one option. If you wanted to move to the web, then you needed to find a way to build your own platform, manage your own servers, hire software developers, etc. And even when outsourcing options initially did become available, they were cost prohibitive. Simply put, the landscape has changed and there are options that exist today that just didn’t exist when L&D and assessment firms were transitioning their business to the web.

Think about it, if today’s options existed during that pivotal time, would these assessment companies still have made the costly decision to hire IT teams and developers just to build something entirely from scratch and then pay to manage it themselves? Would you have made the same decision? Probably not. Many organizations are now taking a good hard look in the mirror to determine what type of company they want to be. Are we a content company? A training or coaching company? Or a technology company? Don’t get caught playing in the wrong space; one that doesn’t cater to your strengths. Chess or Checkers? It’s an important distinction.

Two: Keeping up with the Joneses

For years, the act of taking out a pencil and manually completing a paper survey was just how it was done; it was accepted as the standard. Until it wasn’t. As soon as an easier, faster and cheaper option became available, (i.e. clicking through a survey online) paper surveys quickly became antiquated. There came a point in time where proposing paper surveys was a sales pitch killer and not having an online option meant losing to your competitors. This same evolution is happening again, but this time with the online User Experience itself. Just as paper surveys became obsolete so too have previous generations of technology and web design. UI and UX trends are evolving at such a rate, that presenting an even slightly outdated system becomes a highly visible blemish to what otherwise might be an excellent assessment solution.

As technology becomes more advanced and more integrated in all aspects of our lives, user expectations are higher than ever. Keeping ahead of the curve is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s a requirement – at least if you want to remain relevant and competitive. However, doing so requires immense financial investment. It also requires time, focus, and advanced technological expertise. If you’re not going “all in” on your 360 feedback software, then you risk falling behind and from there, it’s a slow march towards irrelevance. Like the evolutionary leap from paper to online, we’re now in an era where not having tools like interactive dashboards, talent analytics, or fully automated integrations is becoming an albatross. And this is not to mention the ever-increasing security and data privacy hoops you must jump through (don’t worry, we cover that in a separate blog).

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Three: Migration Anxiety

Over the years, we’ve heard from several leaders in our industry who maintain their own platform, while also fully understanding the benefits of a hosting provider. They can clearly see that outsourcing would be cheaper and yield better outcomes, and they understand the massive time and resource drain involved in maintaining their current system. They can visualize the end-state of freeing up resources and having pure focus on their core business, all while saving money and getting a better user experience. These are folks who know where to go, they just aren’t quite sure how to get there. After all, the idea of forklifting an entire ecosystem of surveys, scoring, normative data, report templates, etc. can seem daunting. And we’ve found that most make assumptions about what that might cost and what else might they lose in the migration. We’re often asked, will I have to adopt a generic report, will I be able to keep my branding, my norms, my historical data, my methodology? We answer those questions in three words: Fully Customized Hosting. The goal is to leverage the technology, the security and performance that a hosting solution provides, but while keeping all the elements of your existing and proprietary content that makes you, “you.”

In closing, the core question here is about identity. Are you a technology company or are you an L&D company? While doing both may have worked in the past, it just doesn’t cut it in today’s environment. The tech game has fundamentally changed, the stakes of not keeping up have never been higher, and migrating isn’t as daunting (or expensive) as you may think. The bottom line: The costs of outsourcing has dropped over the years, while the cost of maintaining the status quo are growing every day.

1. Lack of people resources

L&D and training always seem to be strapped for people to meet the strategic goals leadership sets. No wonder the first reaction toward committing staff to learning and administering one more manager-related initiative is often a very visceral, “We’d love to, but we just don’t have the people.”

That response toward tackling something like this is heightened by today’s uncertain business environment, seemingly more important immediate needs, and a lack of L&D staff because of furloughs and layoffs.

2. Lack of budget

Finding money for new L&D programs is always a challenge — and another hurdle that’s exacerbated by the current economic crisis. This roadblock to improved leadership development usually occurs when an L&D leader comes up against one of three barriers:

• They lose the allocated budget.
• They’re unable to find new budget to make the investment.
• Another initiative has taken precedence over their 360 strategy.

3. Current professional development already encompasses manager training

Many L&D leaders feel this way. If not you, your managers may certainly feel they have all of their development needs covered. Either way, there’s a belief that adding another layer of review is redundant and just asking for trouble. This is often the case when L&D or training leaders aren’t connected with their assessment and training vendors as partners who can explain the breadth of what their tools can and can’t do. Each type of tool has its unique purpose; just because you’re using some of those tools doesn’t mean your job is done — or is being done as well as it could be.

4. Uncertainty around which leadership skills to focus on developing — and for which managers

Very few companies have the insight, data, or processes to most optimally focus their L&D efforts. Research from Hewitt Associates and the Human Capital Institute found that only 7% of organizations consistently hold managers accountable for developing their direct reports. No wonder most managers lack the basic capability to develop talent effectively: Only 5% of organizations say their managers have the skills to grow people in their jobs or to provide the constructive feedback that supports and encourages employee development consistently across the organization.

5. Manager reluctance to take on the role of coach to their employees

In the 1989 movie Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner’s character is counseled, “If you build it, he will come.” That isn’t necessarily true for L&D leaders trying to encourage managers to embrace one more development style or initiative. The simple reason is that although leadership-style training for managers might not be a novel concept for L&D leaders, it might be new to many of your managers.

We’d agree with these five reasons from LinkedIn about why managers fear coaching:

• Lack of support – from the organization, their supervisor, or even their team members
• Lack of belief or mindset – common internal thinking such as: “I don’t have all the answers,” “It’s gonna take too long,” “I have too many direct reports,” or “I’m not going to see the results in my effort, so why bother”
• Lack of commitment from their team members – usually the result of weak engagement between managers and their teams, leaving everyone defensive and adding uncertainty and confusion to the mix
• Lack of skills – being asked to do something without being enabled with the right skills or a path toward developing those skills
• Lack of structure – lack of a clear and defined process upfront creates a struggle in finding the right time and cadence for managers to work with their people

6. Lack of C-suite buy-in

Research consistently proves that a culture of coaching is necessary if you want your managers to model coaching behavior. Managers already buried with meetings, emails, and more meetings won’t find the time to embrace coaching unless it’s embedded within the company psyche itself.

It is clear that investing in coaching development, despite any difficulties involved, has many advantages. This can improve onboarding, engagement, performance, knowledge transfer and development as well as looking after the wellbeing of teams. Therefore, making coaching a major priority in an organization can produce good results in numerous ways which cannot be overlooked.

A manager’s potential for helping or harming your business is now felt and measured in ways that are far wider and deeper than those traditional, almost quaint performance standards. For example, Gallup says managers account for 70% of the variance in employee experience. More to the point, managers hold the power to make or break an employee’s experience starting from Day One. Specifically, Gallup research that focused on the manager experience found that managers directly affect:

Onboarding: When managers play an active role in onboarding, employees are 2.5 times more likely to strongly agree their onboarding was exceptional.

Performance: Only 2 in 10 employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.

Turnover: Fifty-two percent of exiting employees say that their manager could have done something to prevent them from leaving their job. But only 51% of employees who left their job had a conversation about their engagement, development, or future during the three months leading up to their departure.

“Clearly,” the report summarizes, “if you want to radically transform your employee experience, you must first fix your manager experience.” And there’s a generational impact to be aware of: Younger workers are, meanwhile, more likely to be influenced by a manager’s leadership style.

Millennials are now the largest demographic in the workforce. As a generation, they require more frequent, more direct, and more actionable manager feedback than any previous generation. They are also more likely to say that “quality of manager” is a top factor they consider when looking for a new job. In other words, they want from their managers the same kind of counsel and guidance that traditionally comes from mentors or leadership role employees.

Today’s world demands leaders who can set goals and hold people accountable, while also authentically caring for them by showing them true leadership and guidance. When done right, regardless of your current perception of manager performance, this sort of development can empower managers to build great employee experiences that drive engagement, increase productivity, and boost retention.

Even if your organization has a coaching mindset or model in place for your managers, it may be lacking effective modern leadership development of those coaching skills. Or it could be missing the level of customization and personalization that’s needed to fully guide and be part of the new world of the employee journey.

The key point to leave with right now is that managers are nothing less than the silver bullet for success in today’s shifting workplace landscape, and they can no longer manage effectively by using outdated management styles.

As an executive, you are the leader of your unit or organization, and you will set the emotional tone for the people with whom you work. If you tend to be pessimistic about what is going on in the business and outside in the bigger world, that attitude will filter down to everyone else. You might see a lot of scowls, poor performance, and even resignations. But if you’re optimistic about the future and the possibilities for the organization, others will sense your enthusiasm and mirror it. You are likely to see people taking informed risks, performing above expectations, and associates who want to transfer into your unit.

This enthusiasm is called “Engagement,” because you are emotionally and actively engaged with your job, the business, and opportunities for the future. Your engagement level will probably fluctuate somewhat over time, but it should be especially strong during times of change. Change is usually difficult for people and others will look to you to initiate enthusiasm for how the change will improve their lives.

If you tend to be naturally enthusiastic about everything you do, congratulations! But if you, like most people, struggle at times to be as engaged as you know you need to be, here are a few tips that might help.

• Check your work/life balance. Are you regularly working far more hours a week than you really can maintain? If so, you might need to change your priorities for a while until you regain your enthusiasm for your work. Also, if you’re expecting your staff to work 50-80 hours a week on a regular basis, you will probably be dealing with retention issues. Cutting back expectations to a more manageable level will probably help everyone on your team to be more engaged.
• Instead of always thinking about how difficult everything is, remember those initiatives of yours that have succeeded. You would not have been promoted to an executive position if your initiatives had regularly failed. So, for a few minutes every day, remember your successes and tell yourself that you can succeed again.
• Develop a support network to help each other through difficult times. This might mean reaching out to your peers in other parts of the organization and scheduling regular meetings to discuss your ongoing struggles and successes at work. Chances are that, if you are struggling, others are, too, and you can help each other.
• Consider what has happened to lower your level of engagement. Once you discover what changed, you might need to do something to help the situation. This might involve talking with a person whom you find difficult to deal with about the circumstances, scaling back on the number of change initiatives your team is undertaking at any one time, or letting go of some aspects of your job that you find overly difficult or frustrating.
• Consider how you truly feel about your job or organization at this time. If you can’t find a way to increase your engagement level, you might need to consider stepping aside as leader or making some other major change. Your team deserves a leader who is enthusiastic about the future, just as you deserve a job that excites you. Once you are honest with yourself, you will be able to make the changes that are necessary to revive your enthusiasm.

Effective leaders are enthusiastic about their work, and this enthusiasm and drive inspire others to perform at increasingly high levels. Enthusiasm will often turn difficult situations around, and optimism is contagious. No one is enthusiastic all the time, but, given some thought and effort, you can increase your engagement and therefore, your effectiveness.  

Getting delegation right is difficult and takes some practice, but it is certainly possible. Delegating is difficult because people need to be given different amounts of responsibility depending on the circumstances. A person who is new to the job should be given less responsibility and receive more supervision than someone who has extensive experience in the job. Even an experienced worker will need more supervision when learning something new.

Effective delegation requires more than just understanding the employee’s ability to succeed in the task. The manager must also understand her/his tolerance level for mistakes. For example, when a task is critical to the team’s effectiveness or safety, the tolerance level should be minimal. But when a mistake would result in few repercussions, it is probably worthwhile to allow the employee to learn from her/his mistakes.

Too much delegation will often result in high levels of mistakes as well low confidence in you as manager. Conversely, too little delegation can result in an over-dependence on you and a lack of initiative by your team members. You may be considered a micro-manager, and people might end up quitting because of you.

What’s a poor, longsuffering manager to do?

If delegation is a particularly difficult skill for you, consider the following suggestions.

• When assigning responsibilities, consider whether you need to have the work done without errors or whether you can tolerate a few errors as the person learns. If the work needs to be done error-free, you might want to delegate the assignment to your most experienced person, and only serve as back-up to that person. If you can tolerate a few errors, consider assigning it to a less-experienced person and possibly asking the more experienced person to be back-up. That will allow both people to experience a stretch assignment.
• Ask your team members what kind of assignments they would like to receive in the coming year, and then do your best to honor their requests.
• Make sure you discuss the expected result when you delegate a task. Both you and the person responsible for the task should understand what is acceptable performance, when the assignment is due, and how often the work should be monitored by you. That will keep any unpleasant surprises to a minimum.
• Consider your team members as collaborators rather than subordinates. Collaboration involves people acting as a team and using their strengths, whereas thinking of team members as subordinates implies that you have all the answers and you may or may not share those answers with them. People who are treated as collaborators are much more likely to rise to expectations than those who are considered to be subordinates.
• Consult with colleagues or with your own manager to receive guidance about the best way to delegate. These people will probably be happy to collaborate with you to help you become more comfortable with delegation.

Managers who delegate well can probably trust their team members to effectively plan and handle their assignments and to ask for help when they need it. That level of trust isn’t automatic; rather, it needs to be earned. Don’t automatically assume that team members can handle this level of trust, but do provide it when it has been earned. Team members are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt if they see you are trying to master this skill.

The idea of Management by Walking Around is to listen more than you talk. Listening to the people who are doing the work—and struggling with a problem of one sort or another–provides you with a level of understanding that you probably wouldn’t get any other way. Steve Jobs used to respond to a huge number of customer complaints and questions so he could understand what problems people were having with Apple’s software and hardware and do something about them.

Listening is the first part of effective communication. Then, after you hear and understand what others are saying to you, you will need to speak or write back to them. These communications should be clear, to the point, and focused on the goals your team is trying to achieve.

Communicating effectively is at the heart of good management. Good managers can communicate goals and other instructions so clearly that their team members understand what they are expected to do and, if necessary, how to do it, as well as when the project is due and how their work will be evaluated. Good managers are also able to listen to problems or concerns and respond appropriately to help team members achieve their goals.

If communicating effectively is not your strong suit, here are some tips you might consider:

• Find opportunities to listen to people from all levels of the organization. The higher up you are in the hierarchy, the more difficult this could be. But it’s worth the trouble. Chat with people, ask them what kinds of problems they are having at their jobs, and listen carefully to what they say. Work on not thinking about your reply while they’re still talking, but wait until they are finished before you decide how to respond.
• If speaking in front of a group is a problem for you, consider enrolling in a class in public speaking or even taking an improv class. Your aim isn’t to be funny, but to be able to respond in the moment to questions or comments without getting flustered. Practice your speech in front of a mirror, or get someone who will be kind to critique it before you present it. Good speakers are not born, but made, through practice practice practice.
• If writing is a problem for you, ask someone who is good at it to help you craft your written messages. These, too, will get better with practice.
• It’s a lot more effective to deliver difficult messages in person, or even on the phone, than through email. When you communicate directly with people you can judge their reactions, respond immediately to any concerns, and convey the exact tone that you want. While it might be faster to send out an email, your message may not be as convincing or effective as it would if you took the time and effort to communicate it in person.
• To make sure that your audience understands your message, ask them to summarize, in their own words, what they thought they heard you say. Use this opportunity to clear up any misunderstandings. The people to whom you were speaking might have been thinking about how they were going to respond instead of listening carefully to your words. When they realize they may need to repeat the message back to you, they will listen even more carefully in the future. And you will reap the benefits.

Perhaps outwardly it seems so. But when we step back for a moment, we quickly realize that those are just milestones that come and go. What we’re really excited about are the more intangible things these milestones say about the teams we have working for us:

• Innovation and resourcefulness. Outpacing a competitor, re-branding a stagnated product image, diversifying marketing efforts to reach previously untapped markets–such are the things that we usually reward. But what really matters to us is our team’s ability to see the big picture, to hone in on new opportunities, and to leverage its resources to effectively capitalize on them. We’re not interested in bursts of success that are ultimately unsustainable, and we don’t want our teams understanding their value to us in terms of the win itself, but rather in terms of what the win represents about their growing competencies.
• Teamwork that really works. Getting along is one thing. But really getting the job done effectively as a group is a lot tougher (and a lot rarer) among business teams. That’s because we’re hardwired to do things our own way, and effective teams are rarely comprised of a bunch of like-minded people. Yet business success depends on a variety of perspectives, a diversity of skill sets, and the cooperation of many different parties (often with competing interests). Given that outlook, it’s astounding that teams work at all–and, in fact, many don’t. They just get along. So whenever we do win big, we need to make sure we’re celebrating it as an especially lucid example of a truly rare thing: a team that actually works.
• Rising from the ashes. Sometimes we get it right the first time. But unless we’re part of the vanishing minority of overnight success stories in the business world, our wins come as a result of hard-fought battles to overcome early struggles and setbacks. Or perhaps early success was followed by some backtracking and we’re only now finally breaking free and gaining new ground again. The point is that whenever we achieve an important new milestone, what we want our teams to understand is that we’re celebrating their ability to rise from the ashes of past defeats and push forward with greater initiative and stronger resolve than before. Only those who can keep their losses in proper perspective have the tenacity to turn them into wins later on, and that’s worth celebrating.

When we celebrate what really matters, our teams see their successes as the springboard for new ones. They feel empowered to take risks and even to take a few hits along the way toward growing a stronger, more innovative organization. Getting a good feel for your team’s strengths is a great way to make sure those qualities are what take top billing at your company’s next victory lap.

Cheers to that!

Let these five essential tips get you started:

1.) Acknowledge Your Style: Every great leader knows their strong points and their not so strong points. What qualities do you possess? Where do you need improvement? Asking yourself these kinds of questions will allow you to analyze what you already know and what you need to learn. A great way to discover this is during the 360 degree feedback process.

2.) Be a Role Model: Without followers, you cannot be a leader. You need to give people a reason to follow your lead. Adapting traits of successful leaders like having a positive attitude, being creative, and believing in others will inspire those around you.

3.) Encourage Teamwork: Leaders motivate and encourage others. They believe in their talents as much as they believe in their own, so don’t take on tasks alone. Letting your co-workers contribute to projects not only shows that you value their efforts, it heightens their self-esteem and that’s a surefire way to boost their work productivity.

4.) Listen and Communicate: Being a great leader means you listen to your co-workers ideas and concerns, you pay attention to what works and what doesn’t, and you openly communicate your thoughts with those around you. You are open to change if it benefits the business and its workers. As for the suggestions that won’t work out, you let these down easy, explain why to your best understanding, and thank them for their contribution.

5.) Stay Educated: A passionate leader doesn’t settle for what they know and just keep rolling with that. They’re always looking for a way to broaden their knowledge in their field, how to expand their creative way of thinking, and any possible way they can learn and help the business grow.