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The first step when you’re working with almost any corporate coach is to do a “360” (as in, all directions). Basically, that means the coach will interview everyone in your sphere—your boss, peers, subordinates, clients, suppliers—and try to elicit honest feedback about you and your performance. (It’s necessary to talk to everyone to locate the suck-ups who are perfect in their relationships with their bosses and tyrants to everyone below.) It’s obviously easier for people to speak openly to third parties who promise anonymity (coaches usually aggregate the data and won’t reveal who said what). If you work for a company with a reasonable training or professional development budget, ask if it would be willing to hire an executive coach to work with you. Because many employees shy away from coaches, viewing them as “remedial education for executives,” your boss is likely to be impressed with your proactive approach to self-improvement.

Even if your company won’t pay for a coach, it may have recommendations about coaches you can retain personally. They can be expensive, with fees in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, but if you’re in a position to do it, the information they gather (and their recommendations based on it) can be invaluable. You can also ask for suggestions from colleagues.

But what if you simply aren’t able to work with an outside coach? Don’t worry: there are steps you can take to elicit “360” information yourself. First, create a list of questions you think would be helpful in enhancing your self-knowledge. Executive coach Michael Melcher suggests “paired questions” such as, “What’s my strength? What’s not my strength? What career can you see me in? What career can you definitely not see me in?” That format, says Melcher, “gives people permission to give the full picture—they don’t want to be too negative.” The best questions will be the ones most relevant to you. But just for starters, some additional examples might be:

 What are three words you’d use to describe me?

 If you didn’t already know what I do for a living, what would you guess?

 I’m trying to go from X to Y; what steps would you suggest for me?

 Who are some people who have some of the qualities I should be trying to build?

 What are my blind spots?