Does anyone really benefit from 360-degree feedback?

Someone at a holiday party asked me about our firm and its work.  When I got to the part about using 360-degree assessments for leadership development, the person asked me if anyone ever really changes his or her behavior as result of feedback from peers, direct reports and bosses.  While people certainly do change--we have heard as much from many school leaders who participated in our institutes over the years--I have always had the nagging hunch that fewer people change than might be ideal, and that many who do make changes fail to address some of the most crucial issues in their leadership.

Part of the problem can be attributed to human nature and another part to the fact that, following any professional development experience, real life resumes and the pressures of the moment quickly take precedence over best intentions to change behavior.  But, it seems to me that an even larger part of the problem is the fact that very few managers take seriously their role as developers of subordinates.  They, too, fall victim to the "tyranny of the urgent" and, when evaluating subordinates, place emphasis on executing existing tasks, sometimes exclusively so.  Maybe they don't really know how to develop other adults.

If so, we are all missing a great opportunity.