XBradTC

If you’ve been looking forward to the day you could rate your boss, your hopes may be dashed in the wake of an official Pentagon study that concludes “360-degree reviews” probably should not be used as a part of the formal military evaluation and promotion process.

Also known as a “multirater review,” the controversial assessment tool mixes input from peers and subordinates as well as supervisors. It was widely touted a few years ago as a way to screen out so-called toxic leaders from senior military commands.

But the new report cites a long list of legal, cultural and practical concerns that would prevent this type of review’s widespread use in determining who gets selected for promotions, command assignments or slots at prestigious schools.

via Study pans use of ‘360-degree reviews’.

One officer was kind enough to shared his 360 with me. It was interesting.

The gist of this article is that such a review is ill suited for use in determining promotion and other official uses. And it is.

But I do think such reviews can be very useful as a personal and professional development tool. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to read a series of peer/subordinate evals and take note of trends.

Of course, those issues subordinates and peers choose to emphasize in their reviews might not align with the evaluated officer’s superior’s priorities. For instance, if the Colonel is focused on the production of critical software, that’s going to be the Major’s priority. But if the Captains are focused on some other unit issue, they’re review of the Major will be skewed. That can be a tool the Colonel uses in the development of the Major, but would hardly be appropriate to use as a metric for promotion consideration.

I think there is a place for the 360 review. Just not for promotions.

Incidentally, the impetus behind the 360 review was to identify toxic leadership. But as the article notes, it’s not like it is a big secret as to who the toxic leaders are, but that so many are allowed to continue in their position, either being promoted to the point where their style of leadership becomes the accepted norm, or they engage in such egregiously bad behavior that they are relieved, by which time the damage to many, many people has already been done.