Designing Trust-Building Feedback Sessions: My Real Review of Using Oscillian as a Leadership Coach

My Background (So You Know Where This Is Coming From)

I am a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with 11 years in executive and leadership coaching. My clients are mostly mid-to-senior leaders at tech companies, usually working on self-awareness, team dynamics, or navigating transitions.

I have used 360 assessments, personality instruments, and various feedback tools. Most of them are either too heavy (40-page reports nobody reads) or too light (vague sentiment that does not lead anywhere).

When I heard about Oscillian, I was cautiously interested. The pitch, that it maps the gap between how you see yourself and how others see you, without ratings or essay comments, sounded like it might fit a specific gap in my practice.

I tested it with 6 clients over 3 months. Here is what I found.

How I Actually Used It

I integrated Oscillian into existing coaching engagements, not as a standalone tool. Specifically:

Client 1 (New Manager): Sarah was 3 months into her first management role and worried about how her team saw her leadership style. We used the leadership topic.

Client 2 (VP preparing for CEO role): Marcus wanted to understand how his executive presence landed with his board and direct reports. We focused on communication style.

Client 3 (Founder with co-founder tension): Priya was in conflict with her co-founder and wanted to understand her role in the dynamic. Relationship feedback topic.

Clients 4-6: Similar use cases around leadership presence, team dynamics, and stakeholder perception.

What Actually Worked

1. The format lowered defensiveness.

This was the biggest win. When clients see a list of qualities rather than paragraphs of criticism, they engage differently. Sarah (the new manager) said: It does not feel like someone is attacking me. It just feels like data.

That matters. Defensive clients do not grow.

2. The Revealed quadrant created productive discomfort.

The Revealed corner (what others see that you did not select for yourself) consistently generated the richest coaching conversations. For Marcus, seeing intimidating in his Revealed quadrant led to a breakthrough about how his directness was landing with junior staff.

3. Quick to set up and run.

I do not want to spend coaching sessions on logistics. Oscillian took maybe 5 minutes to set up per client, and respondents completed it in 2-3 minutes. Compare that to the 45-minute 360 surveys I have administered.

4. Repeatable without fatigue.

With heavy 360s, you can do maybe one per year. With Oscillian, I ran follow-up sessions 6-8 weeks later to track perception shifts. The lightweight format made that possible.

What Did Not Work (Or Needs Caveats)

1. It is not a replacement for deep 360 assessments.

For clients who need comprehensive leadership evaluation, with behavioral examples and development recommendations, Oscillian is too light. It shows patterns, not specifics.

2. Some clients wanted to know who said what.

The anonymous format is both a strength and a limitation. One client (Priya) kept asking: Was that my co-founder who said I am controlling? I could not tell her, and she found that frustrating.

3. The topic selection could be clearer.

I had to spend time helping clients choose the right topic. The catalogue is extensive, but it is not always obvious which one fits a specific coaching goal. A guided recommendation would help.

4. No normative data.

Some clients asked: Is this result good or bad? Oscillian does not benchmark against other leaders or teams. It just shows your gap. For clients used to percentile rankings, this took adjustment.

5. Results depend entirely on who responds.

One client only got 3 responses (out of 8 invitations). The results were thin. The tool cannot make people participate, and low response rates weaken the signal.

My Honest Assessment

Oscillian fills a specific niche in my practice: quick, structured perception feedback that creates productive discomfort without triggering defensiveness.

It is not a diagnostic tool. It does not tell you why someone is perceived a certain way. But it reliably shows you the gap between intention and impact, and that gap is often exactly what coaching needs to address.

I now use it for:

• New leaders who need quick baseline feedback
• Executives preparing for high-stakes transitions
• Clients stuck in relationship conflicts who need external data
• Follow-up measurement after coaching interventions

I do not use it for:

• Comprehensive leadership assessments
• Performance review inputs
• Situations requiring documented, detailed feedback

Practical Tips If You Are a Coach Considering This

1. Frame it as exploration, not evaluation. Clients respond better when you position it as let us see what patterns emerge rather than let us measure your leadership.

1. Help clients write the invitation message. The way they ask for feedback affects who responds and how honest they are. I now co-write the invitation with every client.

1. Do not open results alone. I always schedule a session to review results together. Clients need support processing the Revealed quadrant especially.

1. Plan the follow-up. The tool is more powerful when you use it twice: once for baseline, once for progress check. Build that into your engagement.

The Bottom Line

After 6 clients and 3 months, Oscillian has earned a regular spot in my toolkit. It is not revolutionary, but it is genuinely useful for surfacing blind spots in a format that clients can actually work with.

If you are a coach looking for something between let us just talk about it and here is your 50-page 360 report, it is worth trying.