Problems with Leadership 360s

Leadership 360 assessments promise well-rounded insight from colleagues, direct reports, supervisors, and themselves — but when poorly executed, it can feel like the blind leading the blind.

Here at The Metiss Group, we use Management Research Group’s LEA 360 tool in our program, The Strategic Leadership Alignment™. We’ve helped hundreds of clients gain powerful insights from their teams, and we’ve helped them build a development strategy that ties directly to their strategic plan based on that data.

In this article, we’ll discuss some of the common problems we see with leadership 360s:

1. Poor questionnaire format: Likert vs. Semi-Ipsative
2. Feedback requires vulnerability
3. Poor data leads to poor decisions
4. Rater bias can skew results
5. Leaders often don’t know what to do with the results
6. Some people misuse 360s as performance evaluations

1. Format Matters: Likert vs. Semi-Ipsative

Many bad leadership 360s use a Likert-based format. That’s the familiar 5-point linear: Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. It's convenient and easy to complete, but it also leaves too much room for bias, ambiguity, and safe responses.

Semi-ipsative formats, on the other hand, ask raters to choose between two equally positive or neutral statements — which forces a clear preference relative to leadership habits, not just the last exposure to that leader. This makes it much harder to inflate ratings (or use them as a weapon).

Here’s a side-by-side view:

Leaders don’t need 20 people agreeing they’re “above average.” They need to know which behaviors stand out and which are getting in the way. The assessment format plays a big role in making that distinction.

2. Feedback Requires Vulnerability

Whether leaders admit it or not,  asking people to rate you can be uncomfortable. Even the most confident leaders might feel a little exposed when it’s their turn to get feedback. A 360 assessment turns the spotlight back on you, and that’s not always easy. It raises tough questions: What will people say? Am I really showing up the way I think I am?

For some leaders, that discomfort is enough to avoid the process entirely. The risk of hearing something negative can feel bigger than the reward of learning something useful. Others have been burned by past experiences — feedback that was vague, harsh, or flat-out wrong — and now they keep their guard up.

But growth doesn’t happen without a willingness to feel a little uncomfortable. A 360 only works when a leader is open to hearing feedback and ready to sort through it with curiosity instead of defensiveness.

3. Poor Data Leads to Poor Decisions

When it comes to leadership 360s, bad data can waste money and drive the wrong decisions. If the tool’s structure is weak or the rater pool isn’t thoughtfully selected, the feedback becomes noise. 

Again, a common culprit is the overuse of generic, Likert-style questions that lack context or behavioral clarity. Vague items like “displays leadership” are too open to interpretation. Ten raters can read that ten different ways. If one person defines leadership as decisiveness and another sees it as empathy, their ratings don’t tell a consistent story, and the data loses its meaning.

Then there’s the issue of rater selection. When participants aren’t well-positioned to observe the leader's day-to-day behavior, or when they haven’t been prepped on how to give objective, constructive feedback, the results can skew wildly. Sometimes it’s too positive; other times, too reactive. Either way, it’s hard to trust.

Well-structured 360s solve this by focusing on observable behaviors, using precise prompts, and ensuring the right people are weighing in. If the data doesn’t have that foundation, then the development plan that follows may be built on guesswork.

4. Rater Bias Can Skew Results

Even with a well-structured assessment, bias is still a concern. Raters bring their own filters, expectations, and experiences. Personal relationships, past conflicts, or unconscious bias can all influence how someone responds. Some inflate scores to avoid tension. Others deflate them to prove a point.

This is why calibration and balance across rater groups matter. A good 360 process accounts for this and includes enough context to interpret the feedback with nuance.

5. Leaders Often Don’t Know What to Do with the Results

One of the most overlooked problems is what happens after the report is delivered. Many leaders receive their 360 results and feel overwhelmed, defensive, or unsure of what to do next. Without proper support, the insights can be misinterpreted, or maybe the leader won’t use the data at all.

Effective 360s need an experienced guide to walk leaders through the findings, clarify patterns, and build an action plan. 

6. Misusing 360s as Performance Evaluations

A 360 is a tool for development, not evaluation. It’s meant to surface how a leader shows up in the workplace, not whether they’re hitting their KPIs. 

That distinction matters — especially because many 360s rely on feedback from peers and direct reports. You wouldn’t ask a direct report to formally assess their manager’s job performance.

We’ve seen it before: a leader is underperforming, but no one knows how to say it directly. So instead, they’re pushed into a 360, with the hope that anonymous feedback will do the hard part. That shifts the responsibility of giving course-corrective feedback from the manager to the raters. 

If someone isn’t meeting expectations, that should be addressed through clear, direct performance management. Leadership 360s are better used to develop high performers and align leadership development to support the overall organizational strategic plan, not to send veiled messages to those who are struggling.

The bottom line on Leadership 360s

Leadership 360s can be powerful, but only when they’re designed well, interpreted thoughtfully, and used for the right reasons. Without that, they risk becoming more noise than insight.

Here at The Metiss Group, we understand the need for honest, behavior-based feedback to truly maximize leadership development. Our tools and coaching help organizations cut through the fluff, focus on what matters, and build leaders who grow with clarity, not confusion.

Now that you understand the problems with Leadership 360s, the next step is to learn what The Strategic Leadership Alignment™ is at The Metiss Group.