360-degree assessment

A 360-degree assessment is the gathering of feedback about a person from many different sources around them. A manager, peers, team members, and sometimes clients each give their view separately, so that the person receives feedback not from a single perspective but from a many-sided picture. The value of this method is that it makes visible the gap between a person's own perception and others' perception; most blind spots hide precisely in this gap. In coaching, this data is treated not as a tool of judgment but as a starting point for development. Light coming from many directions illuminates the shadows a single source leaves behind.