How are you doing? Assessing How the Staff and Community Perceive Your Performance

I remember while completing my doctorate we studied the “Johari Window”, which is a tool designed to help us understand how we are perceived by others.  The tool, which is broken into quadrants, points out there are portions of our life which we know and understand, but others do too.  We also have parts of our life which we know, but is unseen to others.  Finally, we all have “blind spots”; areas where others know things about us, but we are unaware of what they see.  Is there a way for us to gain insight into these blind spots for our life and performance?  I believe there is and that is the focus of today’s post.

After personally reflecting upon my potential blind spots some years back, and how they impacted me as a leader, I put together what I call a “modified 360 degree review”.  The goal was to gain insight into how my performance was perceived across a broad spectrum of district constituents to include administrators, teachers, community members, community leaders and parents.  Once in hand, I could use these perceptions to guide my personal professional development.  Not all of the items were relevant and at times I believe the comments were off base, but for the most part I found this exercise to be extremely beneficial to my personal growth.

The key to this method, and what made it different from most 360 degree processes, was that it was not evaluative in nature.  In other words, no one saw the results of the review other than me.  It was for my reflection and for my growth.  I consumed the information as I saw fit and this enabled me to really grapple with the results in a different way using my own metacognitive skills to guide who I could become.

To implement a modified 360 review for yourself you need to think through the process.  You need a 360 degree review instrument (see attached), a list of participants, and a note to participants indicating that their submission is anonymous and that the results will only be reviewed by you.  It is also important to help participants understand that you are using the results for your own professional growth as this can help them be more candid.

Although I am sure there are other ways to uncover our blind spots as described in the Johari Window, I can tell you this method worked for me.  I would conduct the review on an annual basis, normally in the spring of the year, and reflect upon the information as I thought about my growth over the summer months.  If you are aware of other methods which you have either used, or are have heard others discuss please share them in the comments section below.  As always, we all grow and become more wise when we share with each other.