Femme Power

If you think only subordinates are being evaluated and graded, think again.

A lot of companies, like some of the ones I worked for in the past, are having their superiors rated by their subordinates. They call it 360 evaluation.

It’s a tool that some companies use to find out how their people on top are doing, from the point of view of those who do the “real” jobs down the line.

I chanced upon Dennis Carey: The 360 and it reminded me of the first time I came across this 360 thing. As a store manager, I had to evaluate my area manager’s performance basing on skills and behavioral competencies. Under skills were marketing management, operations management, finance management, inventory management, technical competency and people management. Most of them were quantitative hence they weren’t that hard to grade. But the qualitative parts took me a few minutes longer because it was a matter of personal perception - specially the behavioral competency. It wasn’t easy judging somebody especially your boss. I had to back up my “claims.”

In the end my boss got a fine evaluation from me.

I figured then that if, as a leader, you don’t exert an effort to even know your people, you’re not likely to win them whether consciously or subconsciously. Maybe, if my boss then had been apathetic about me, I would have given him a failing grade in the qualitative aspects. Luckily he was the type who listened to all the people in the organization, regardless of rank. He loved talking to us and it made us feel like he cared about us, our career, even our personal concerns. He made our communication lines open and he made us feel good about ourselves.

Considering this, I realized I had to do the same to my subordinates too. Not to get a good rating in 360. But to help make every one’s job easier and the workplace happier.

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