360 Feedback Questions: Question Bank, Examples and a Free Template

"Gives feedback that is specific enough to act on"

• Self: I give feedback close to the event and specific enough that the person knows what to do differently.
• Peer: When we work together, this person gives me feedback I can act on.
• Direct report: My manager gives me feedback close to the event and specific enough that I know what to do differently.
• Manager: This person gives their team feedback that is specific and timely.

"Raises disagreements directly with the person involved"

• Self: When I disagree with someone's approach, I raise it with them rather than with others.
• Peer: When this person disagrees with me, I hear it from them first.
• Direct report: When my manager disagrees with how I have done something, they tell me directly.
• Manager: This person brings disagreements to the people involved rather than escalating around them.

"Keeps the people who depend on their work informed"

• Self: I tell the people waiting on my work how it is going before they have to ask.
• Peer: When I am waiting on this person's work, I know where it is without chasing.
• Direct report: My manager keeps me informed about decisions and changes that affect my work.
• Manager: I hear about progress and problems on this person's work from them, not from someone else.

360 feedback examples: what good answers look like

Two patterns account for most of what a 360 finds in a management cohort. The names below are invented; the shape of the results is the one we see most often when teams bring us their debriefs before a management course.

The blind spot

Sam leads a team of six. On "Delegates whole tasks with the authority to complete them" the scores come back: self 5, manager 4, peers 3.5, direct reports 2.3. A gap of more than one point between the self score and the direct reports is a blind spot, and the written answers explain it:

"Sam hands the task over and then makes every decision inside it. I end up presenting Sam's choices as if they were mine." — direct report

"Delegation is clearly happening from where I sit — the team present the work. I had not seen how much is still routed back through Sam." — manager

"Sam will take a whole workstream off you when you're stretched. Inside their own team I couldn't say." — peer

Read together, the numbers say "disagreement" and the words say "delegation of the task but not the decisions". That is a specific, coachable behaviour, and it is the one thing Sam's development plan should carry for the next eight weeks — not "work on delegation".

The hidden strength

Priya rates herself 3 on "Keeps their composure under pressure in a way that steadies others"; every other group averages 4.6. People under-rate what comes easily to them, and a debrief that only chases weaknesses leaves this on the table. The written answer that matters:

"When the release failed on the Friday, Priya was the only person in the room whose voice didn't change. The rest of us calmed down because she had." — peer

The development action here is not to fix anything. It is to tell Priya, with that quote, that this is a strength others rely on — and then to ask where else in the organisation it is needed.

Open-ended questions that get usable answers

Open-ended prompts carry the examples the ratings cannot. Three to five is enough; each should ask for an occasion, not an opinion, and "start / stop / continue" beats "strengths / weaknesses" because it asks for a behaviour rather than a trait.

• What is this person's greatest strength at work? Give a recent example of when you saw it.
• What is one thing this person should start doing that would make the biggest difference to the people they work with?
• What is one thing this person should stop doing, or do less of?
• When this person disagrees with a decision or an approach, how do they typically handle it? Describe a specific occasion.
• Describe a time this person helped you or the team when they did not have to.
• What does this person do that makes your own work easier?
• What does this person do that makes your own work harder?
• If you were coaching this person for the next six months, what would you focus on first?
• What support, resource or development would most help this person be more effective?
• Is there anything you would want this person to know that the ratings above do not capture?

How many questions, which scale, how long

• Length: 20–28 rated statements plus three to five open-ended prompts. That is ten to twelve minutes per rater. Every rater is completing this for several people; past thirty items the N/O column fills up.
• Competencies: no more than eight, and only the ones that matter for the role. Four statements per competency is enough to see a pattern; one is a coin toss.
• Scale: 1–5 frequency (rarely or never → almost always) with an N/O option. Not agreement, and not 1–10 — nobody can tell a 6 from a 7.
• Raters: self, line manager, two to four peers, and for people managers two to four direct reports. Fewer than three responses in a group cannot be anonymised; merge groups or drop the breakdown rather than expose one rater.
• Cadence: once a year for most roles, twice at most. A 360 every quarter stops being feedback and becomes surveillance.
• Anonymity: individual answers are never shown; the recipient sees averages by group and written comments without names. Say this in the invitation and in the rater instructions.

Download the 360 feedback questionnaire template

Everything above as a ready-to-issue Word document: coordinator notes, rater instructions with the frequency scale, the 28-statement competency bank as tick-box tables, the five open-ended prompts, the self-assessment rule, and a scoring and debrief page with the 30-minute debrief agenda and a one-page development-plan table. A4, five pages, editable — remove the competencies you do not need.

After the survey: scoring, the debrief and the development plan

A 360 that ends with a report is a survey. The value is in the three steps after it, and each has a way of going wrong.

Score it without hiding the finding

• Average each competency by rater group — self, manager, peers, direct reports — ignoring N/O in the denominator. Report to one decimal place; nobody should be arguing about tenths.
• Do not compute an overall score. It hides the only thing worth knowing, which is where the groups disagree.
• Flag any gap of 1.0 or more: self above others is a blind spot; self below others is a hidden strength; manager and direct reports apart means the person behaves differently upward and downward — usually the most important finding for a people manager.

Run the debrief in thirty minutes

1. Before the meeting, the recipient reads the report alone and arrives with the two results that surprised them most.
2. Minutes 0–10: strengths first. The two highest competencies and the written examples behind them — quotes, not adjectives.
3. Minutes 10–25: one gap, chosen by the recipient. Read the written comments on it aloud. Ask what the raters might have seen. Do not defend the raters or the recipient.
4. Minutes 25–30: agree one behaviour to change in the next eight weeks and who will notice if it changes. Book the follow-up before anyone leaves the room.

Elisa Di Mauro, Senior Manager of Talent Development at Rent the Runway, on why the framework around the feedback matters as much as the feedback:

For the feedback to be successful, there needs to be a system for collecting and distributing it. There also needs to be guidance, success criteria, and examples of what good feedback sounds like. This framework can help people get more comfortable giving the feedback.

Write a development plan that fits on one page

Behaviour to change, what the person will do differently, who will notice and how, review date. Three rows at most. Tanya Rice, HR project manager at the CIPD, on what the follow-through produced for their senior leaders:

The 360 programme has enabled us to have honest, and insightful conversations with our senior leaders, and raise their awareness of their impact. We have developed both tailored individual action plans, and incorporated common development needs into our senior leaders programme.

When the same gap shows up across a whole cohort

Run a 360 across a group of new or emerging managers and the individual reports differ, but the cohort pattern rarely does: delegation of tasks but not decisions, feedback that arrives late and general, decisions made alone. That is a training need, and training that follows a 360 lands far better than training that precedes it — the person has just heard from six colleagues why the skill matters.

Our Emerging Managers course is built around exactly those behaviours, delivered to your cohort together, on-site or virtually, and shaped to what their 360s actually showed. Tell us what the reports said and we will tell you what a day should cover.

Frequently asked questions about 360 feedback questions

How many questions should a 360 feedback survey have?

Between 20 and 28 rated statements and three to five open-ended prompts — about ten to twelve minutes for a rater. Beyond roughly thirty items the quality of answers drops before the quantity does: raters start ticking N/O and writing one line.

What is the best rating scale for 360 feedback?

A 1–5 frequency scale (rarely or never to almost always) with a separate not-observed option. Frequency asks the rater for a memory rather than an opinion, which makes the debrief conversation concrete. Avoid 1–10 scales; the extra resolution is noise.

Should 360 feedback be anonymous?

Yes for peers and direct reports, and the recipient should see group averages and unattributed comments only. You need at least three responses in a group to keep it anonymous; with fewer, merge the group into another or report it as a single "others" figure. The manager's rating is usually not anonymous and should be labelled as such.

What is the difference between 360 feedback questions for managers and for everyone else?

The behaviours differ — setting direction, delegating, giving feedback, developing people — and so do the raters who can see them. For a people manager the direct reports' answers carry the most information, because they are the only group who experience the management directly.

Can 360 feedback be used for performance reviews or pay?

It can, but the questions stop working when it is. Raters who know a score affects someone's bonus rate more generously and write less. Keep the 360 developmental, and let the performance review draw on the development plan that came out of it rather than on the raw scores.

Who should write the 360 feedback questions?

Whoever owns the development programme — usually L&D or HR — with the competencies agreed with the managers of the people being reviewed. Start from a bank like the one above and cut to the six to eight competencies that matter for the role, rather than writing from a blank page.