Innovator of 360 Feedback for Training and Development Applications
Clark Loudon Wilson, Jr., 92, a psychologist credited with introducing the concept of 360-degree feedback to the management training field, died August 12 at the Shenandoah Valley Westminster Canterbury retirement community in Winchester, Virginia. He had a stroke in late July while visiting his hometown of Riverside, California. I was a long-time associate of Clark Wilson and coauthor with him on several surveys. I was very lucky to work with Wilson. He was a great teacher, the kind that you find only rarely in a lifetime.
Dr. Wilson’s greatest contribution to the field of industrial and organizational psychology came late in his career after he began to develop the Multi-Level Management Surveys in 1970. An expert in psychological measurement and statistics, he developed assessment tools for managers that provided feedback on relevant managerial and leadership skills from the manager him/herself, the supervisor, direct reports, and peers. The Survey of Management Practices, Survey of Leadership Practices, and Survey of Executive Leadership, were among his most popular titles; the leadership surveys were developed with the cooperation of the World Bank. Over time, multi-level feedback, or 360-degree feedback as it is now known, became a powerful instructional technique that enables individuals to see themselves as others see them and improve their managerial effectiveness. Up to the time of his death, Wilson continued to develop and publish a full range of assessment tools that were of rigorous psychometric standards and highly regarded in the field. The surveys addressed many aspects of organizational behavior and were used throughout the world to improve the performance of managers and leaders.
Clark Wilson published his last book in 2003 at the age of 90. How and Why Effective Managers Balance Their Skills brings together his conclusions from 30 years of research.
In the 7th edition of Organizational Behavior, a leading industrial psychology textbook by Robert Kreitner and Angelo Kinicki (McGraw Hill, NY), the authors offer this assessment in a two-page article in Chapter One:
“Many attempts have been made over the years to paint a realistic picture of what managers do … Fortunately, a stream of research over the past 20 years by Clark Wilson and others has given us a practical and statistically validated profile of managerial skills.”
Clark Wilson was a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and a Fellow of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychologists.
