The best leadership 360°questions don’t just measure; they generate conversations that change the way leaders show up. But most organisations treat their Leadership 360 questionnaire like a checklist, relying on generic questions from template libraries that don’t really resonate with the behaviours that are important in their culture.
Here’s the truth: A well-crafted battery of 360°leadership assessment questions reveals blind spots, enhances team dynamics, and helps develop leadership capacity that translates into business results. A bad one wastes everyone’s time and undermines confidence in the process.
Whether you are creating or redesigning a leadership assessment survey, the questions we’ve identified will help you ask the right questions to give the answers that make leaders effective at leading in your organisation.
Why Most Leadership 360 Feedback Questions Fall Short
So, with that brief primer on what works, let’s look at why so many leadership feedback questions completely miss the mark.
- They are too vague. Questions like “Does this leader listen?” don't say anything. The communication manifests in dozens of ways, including clarity in emails, active listening during meetings, and transparency during uncomfortable conversations. Without behavioural specificity, raters guess at what the question means, and leaders get feedback they can’t use.
- They don't fit the culture. A leadership 360 borrowed from elsewhere will mirror their values, not your own. If teamwork is more important than individual achievement at your workplace, your questions should demonstrate this. Generic questions produce generic insights.
- They measure popularity, not effectiveness. Questions such as “Do you enjoy working for this leader?” tell you about likeability, not suitability for leadership. The point is not to locate the most popular person in the room, but to identify the behaviours that help teams and outcomes advance.
- They disregard context. Leadership varies across levels. Questions you have for a line manager are not the same as those you have for a senior executive. The context matters; therefore, your leadership evaluation questions should reflect that as well.
What Makes a Great Leadership 360 Question?
The strongest leadership 360° feedback questions have three things in common. They are behaviourally centred, precise, and culturally relevant.
- Behavioural: Questions that highlight strong traits will focus on behavioural actions rather than some sort of abstract personality type. Rather than a set of questions such as “Does this leader possess a strategic mind?”, you could ask “Does this leader involve team members in establishing priorities that reflect long-term vision?”
- Specific: Communicates effectively” is not specific.“Provides clear direction when assigning tasks,” or “Checks for understanding before moving forward” is more specific. Specific skills will allow answers to become more apparent through analysis.
- Culturally relevant: The most effective 360-degree leadership questions reflect the qualities most desired in the organisation. Examples of this might be if the organisation values a coaching and development focus. In this environment, the question construction revolves around the personal growth of the staff.
Accountability might be a highly valued business trait. In this instance, leaders are asked how they assume responsibility for the outcomes.
Key Categories of Leadership 360 Questions
360 questions on effective leadership address the core dimensions of leadership. Here's how to structure them across the areas that matter most.
Communication & Transparency
It starts with how information moves. Great communicators don't just provide updates; they bring clarity, invite input, and help people understand the "why" behind decisions.
Questions in this category might include whether the leader explains decisions clearly, listens without interrupting, communicates expectations early, adapts his style to suit the audience, or follows through on commitments.
Decision Making/Problem Solving
Leaders are paid to make calls. The best ones, even with incomplete information, balance speed with input, own their decisions, and course correct as needed.
Your questions here regarding leadership feedback should explore whether the leader pulls in relevant views before making a decision, explains the rationale behind hard decisions, accepts responsibility if the outcome is not as expected, or delegates creative problem-solving to team members.
People Development and Coaching
Great leaders develop other leaders. They do not keep all of the knowledge to themselves or micromanage; they coach, provide statements of support, and trust in the ability of others while also giving room to grow. Exploration in this area can be around things like: does the leader provide lots of feedback, have individual development conversations, delegate big projects, recognise and play to everyone’s strengths, or create opportunities to build skills?
Emotional Intelligence and Self-Awareness
It is equally a job of managing others as managing oneself. Leaders who lack emotional intelligence create instability; those with it build trust and psychological safety.
Your leadership evaluation questions should delve into whether the leader remains composed under pressure, admits to their mistakes openly, listens constructively to feedback, shows empathy during tough conversations, or acknowledges how their mood affects others.
Accountability and Ownership
Accountability is what separates the good from the great. Great leaders are responsible for outcomes, hold themselves and others to high standards, and refrain from passing blame when things go wrong.
Questions here should check if the leader follows through on commitments, holds the team accountable without micromanaging, takes responsibility for failures, addresses underperformance directly, or models the behaviours they expect from others.
Collaboration and Influence
But leadership is less about authority than influence. Great leaders build bridges, always incorporate others into the solution of problems, and create alignment without relying on positional power.
Your leadership 360 questionnaire should check if the leader seeks diverse perspectives, fosters trust across teams, manages conflict constructively, looks to share credit for success, or thinks with a collaborative rather than competitive spirit.
Also read: Why Competency Framework Tools Are Essential for Organisations
How to Write Better Leadership 360 Questions
Effective framing in leadership 360 feedback requires discipline. Applying the right principles ensures that feedback is fair, useful, and actionable rather than vague or interpretive. Below are practical guidelines for designing questions that generate meaningful insights.
Start with behaviours that can be observed, not traits. Replace questions like “Is this a strategic leader?” with something more concrete, such as “Does this leader align team priorities with the long-term vision of the organisation?” Behaviours are observable and measurable, whereas traits are subjective judgments formed from those behaviours.
Keep the language simple. Eliminate jargon and unnecessary complexity. Questions should be easy to understand at first glance. If a rater needs additional explanation to interpret a question, it is a signal that the wording should be simplified or clarified.
Ensure every question is actionable. Effective feedback clearly indicates what an individual should start, stop, or continue doing. For example, “Provides clear expectations when delegating tasks” refers to a specific, observable behaviour. In contrast, “Is a good delegator” is vague and open to interpretation.
Anchor questions should reflect your organisational culture. If transparency is a core value, include questions that explore how leaders communicate openly and share information. If innovation matters, ask how leaders encourage new ideas and respond when initiatives fail. Leadership evaluation questions should reflect what your organisation genuinely values, not generic textbook definitions of leadership.
Keep the questionnaire as concise as possible. Rater fatigue is a real concern. A 360-degree survey with over 100 questions is far more likely to produce rushed or inconsistent responses than one with 60-80 well-considered items. Focus on the essential behaviours that matter most and remove anything that does not directly support your objectives.
To support this process, MultiRater Surveys reporting templates provide well-structured feedback questions tailored for peers, managers, and employees. These templates are designed to reduce ambiguity, improve response quality, and ensure consistency across multi-rater surveys.
Download a free sample report here:https://www.multiratersurveys.com/reporting/
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Even when teams have good intentions, they can run into familiar pitfalls when developing questions for a leadership 360-degree assessment. Here is an overview of things that need to be monitored.
Leading the respondent. Using phrases such as "Does this leader inspire the team to achieve great results?" is already inspiring. More honest feedback is achieved by using more neutral-sounding questions.
Blending quality with frequency. "How often does this leader provide feedback?" measures frequency rather than quality. A better question: "Is feedback provided by this leader specific and actionable when feedback is given?"
Disregarding the rater’s point of view. Peers, direct reports, and stakeholders often observe different behaviours than those captured through traditional top-down reporting. Ignoring these perspectives can lead to incomplete or misleading insights. A structured, multi-rater reporting approach helps organisations capture balanced feedback from multiple viewpoints, ensuring leadership assessments reflect real workplace dynamics rather than a single narrative.
You can explore how structured reporting supports this approach through multi-rater survey reporting tools.
Additionally, too many competencies. Rather than attempting to assess 20 leadership traits across a survey, this distracts from the focus. Focus instead on the 12 to 15 key ones for your environment and drill down into those. Remember, the more concise, the better the development outcome.
Turning Feedback to Development
Real work begins after completion of the first 360 questions. Data that is not acted upon is just noise.
Leaders want more than a summary; they want a roadmap. The best part of the assessment or feedback process is the debrief, where leaders see patterns, identify blind spots, and agree on a plan for personal development.
Set your plan for improvement on 2-3 key areas, and make sure it’s not on areas of weakness. The best improvements are always achieved when the areas focused on have the strongest influence on success. Consistency is important too. Developing leadership skills is an ongoing process. Regular feedback sessions, bite-sized evaluations, and progress checks are important to maintain the momentum.
Conclusion
Good leadership 360s do much more than check boxes; they help dispel assumptions, uncover blind spots, and give focus to an actual path of development. But it will only do this if it fits your culture, focuses on behaviour, and is couched with an openness to growth.
If your current leadership 360 assessment is tired or too generic, it is time to freshen your thinking. Here is where you can start: What is great leadership looking like here? What is driving value? What is missing to improve?
Use these answers to help form your evaluation questions, and you will have a process that the leaders will respect and utilise. Ultimately, as we have concluded, the end goal isn't gathering feedback; it's growing leaders who can make a difference.