Context is Everything
META-Sense asks each respondent to describe a real situation when they experienced a leadership event or episode. This narrative style approach gives insight into the impact the leader or manager had on others. It provides a vital contextful frame for understanding and implementing changes based on the feedback.
Traditional tools and assessments ask respondents to measure a leader in the “abstract” against a set of behaviours or competences. Respondents base their score (as opposed to narrative) on a generalised view of the leader. Therefore, rendering any data for purposeful feedback as less than useful.
Key Differences
Key differences between META-Sense and traditional 360s are summarised in the table below:
|
META-Sense |
Other 360s |
|
Narrative Based |
Behavioural rating |
|
Context specific |
Abstract – context free |
|
Continuous feedback |
One off report |
|
Interpretation of impact |
Numerical scoring |
|
Invites inquiry |
Leads to judgement |
|
Hard to game |
Risk of rater fatigue and “gaming” |
|
Insight led leadership development |
Score led development planning |
We believe that leaders who operate in a complex environment, need more insight into how their leadership is impacting others and achieving results. By linking leadership impact to specific situations, META-Sense offers a richer source of feedback to use as a basis for development planning.
Evidence Base
Evidence shows that multi source feedback is highly effective for development purposes, and the interpretation of the data is facilitated by a skilled and licensed coach, and when the leader is motivated to develop and learn.
META-Sense has been developed with reference to current research on leadership development and multi source feedback.
Over the next few years META-Sense will build up a knowledge resource of the leadership practices that are emerging and provide insightful signal detection of what works.
This will provide evidence, from experience, of the emerging leadership practices that are most effective across a range of organisations and sectors. META-Sense will analyse the patterns that emerge across all the users over time and share this information with HR specialists and leadership development practitioners who are part of the META-Sense network.