Introducing the enhanced Public Service Leadership 360 Assessment

The landscape of public service leadership continues to evolve and to meet changing needs, the Partnership for Public Service has made significant enhancements to its Public Service Leadership 360 Assessment, a comprehensive, multi-rater assessment tool that leaders can use to evaluate their performance, their leadership progress and chart a course for self-improvement. 

The comprehensive updates reflect the Partnership’s commitment to providing relevant, accessible and impactful leadership assessment tools for today’s public servants. 

What we have improved

Recognizing that leadership competencies and feedback needs vary dramatically between emerging and senior leaders, we are now offering two distinct and specialized versions of our 360 assessment. Both versions are designed to address the unique challenges and responsibilities at different leadership levels.  

The Standard assessment provides leaders with a comprehensive evaluation of their foundational public service leadership competencies, while the Senior Leader version addresses complex strategic competencies needed for executive-level impact. 

We have transitioned the entire assessment to a new platform that is designed with the user experience at its core. Our new platform features intuitive navigating both on a phone and computer interface, making the experience seamless while providing comprehensive tools to help you interpret and act on your results.

The 360 assessment gathers input from a range of colleagues—supervisors, peers, direct reports and the individual leader—to provide a comprehensive picture of how leadership behaviors are experienced across different groups. It measures the frequency of observable behaviors tied to our Public Service Leadership Model’s core competencies.

By comparing self-perceptions with the perspectives of others, the 360 assessment helps leaders deepen their self-awareness, uncover strengths and identify areas for development. It can be a valuable tool for reflection, growth and action—supporting more intentional leadership and a clearer sense of how to lead with impact. 

Our Public Service Leadership Model serves as the foundational pillar throughout both the standard and senior leader assessments. It provides a roadmap to strengthen the skills and commit to the values that leaders need in order to tackle the challenges they face. Our model’s four competency areas—Becoming Self-Aware, Engaging Others, Leading Change and Achieving Results—are evaluated throughout the assessment.  

The Leadership Snapshot provides an immediate visual overview of a leader’s  effectiveness across all four competencies, while detailed competency and subcompetency scores break down performance more granularly. The assessment reveals supervisor variance and competency gaps that highlight differences between an individual’s self-perception and how others experience their leadership. These gaps often represent the greatest development and growth opportunities.  

The feedback is comprehensive

Beyond numerical raters, the assessment captures open-ended comments from all rater groups, providing specific examples and contextual insights that numbers alone cannot convey. These qualitative insights, combined with the question-level data, creates a complete picture of leadership impact.  

This assessment also includes guided reflection questions and action planning tools to help transform insights into concrete development strategies. Once completed, participants get to discuss their assessment with an executive coach through one-on-one coaching to understand the data, identify areas for improvement and set attainable goals for success.  

Whether a newly promoted supervisor seeking foundational feedback or a seasoned executive looking for strategic leadership insights, our Public Service Leadership 360 Assessment provides the targeted evaluation needed by individuals to understand their leadership impact and advance their career while serving the public good.  

Abigail Fisher is a member of the Public Service Leadership Institute, supporting federal leadership initiatives including the Excellence in Government Fellows Program, Foundation in Public Service Leadership, and agency engagements.