360-degree feedback (also called multi-rater feedback) is a performance assessment process in which an employee receives structured feedback from multiple sources — their manager, direct reports, peers, and sometimes customers or external stakeholders. Unlike traditional top-down performance reviews, 360-degree feedback provides a more complete and balanced picture of how an individual’s behaviours and capabilities are perceived across different working relationships.
It is most widely used in leadership development programmes to identify blind spots — areas where an individual’s self-perception diverges significantly from how others experience them. A leader who believes they communicate clearly but whose team rates them low on clarity has a critical blind spot that a manager-only review would never surface.
360 Feedback: Best Practice
- Use structured, competency-based questionnaires — not open-ended opinion gathering
- Ensure rater anonymity to enable honest feedback without fear of consequences
- Use as a development tool, not a performance rating — 360 scores should not directly determine pay or promotion
- Always pair results with structured coaching or facilitated debrief sessions
- Run periodically (annually or bi-annually) to track development over time
See also: Leadership Development, Talent Development, Learning Analytics
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