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ARE YOU BLINDSIDED? – LEADERSHIP BLIND SPOTS

Leadership Blind spots, Derailers, Barriers

We all have blind spots, as it is part of the human nature. But what happens when a leader has blind spots? It matters even more as there may be many people who are affected by their decisions and their actions. Blind Spots are also causing problems when they prevent us from learning and adapting to changes especially in today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) environment.

The following definition incorporates the connection between learning, change and blind spots:

“A blind spot is a regular tendency to repress, distort, dismiss or fail to notice information, views, ideas in particular area that results in an individual failing to learn, change or grow in response to changes in that area.” Karen Blakeley

Blind spots are unproductive behaviours that are invisible to us but are obvious to everyone else and also often rooted in a threat presented by certain types of information to our self-concept and sense of identity. As an executive coach I work a lot with leadership blind spots and how to overcome them.

Here are some leadership blind spots and their related symptoms:

  • Going it alone – rejecting offers of support, no including others in decision-making, taking credits alone without sharing it with other contributors etc.
  • Not seeing your impact on others – assume that all of your followers have the same motivations, values, communication styles as you do, you tend to hire ‘mini me’ team members, not recognizing when you have a negative impact, being insensitive to cultural differences, criticizing and devaluing others etc.
  • ‘I know’ attitude – having an answer for everything, rigid and fixed views, lack of intellectual curiosity, arguing with everyone who does not agree with your point of view etc.
  • Valuing being right over being effective – having the correct answer or best course of action, unwilling to spend additional time listening to others, interrupt  people to jump to conclusion based on his/her rightness etc.
  • Avoiding difficult conversations – softening the messages, avoid delivering tough messages, talking in generalizations instead of providing specific and real examples
  • Misreading the political landscape – hate politics, think it is good to be apolitical, only applying power and ignoring the service side of constructive politics, creating conspiracy theory based on biases etc.
  • Treating commitments too casually – not keeping commitments, always maintaining an escape door to avoid being held accountable, making casual promises with no intention of keeping them etc.
  • Conspiring against others – making negative comments about others, talking about people not to them, displaying nonverbal cues of disapproval but not voicing them etc.
  • Clinging to the status quo – fear of change, want to protect legacy revenue streams, uncertain of own role in a newly defined organisation, living in present and past, future being ignored or taken into account with limited scope etc.

 

What is holding you back? What are your leadership blind spots? What is the impact of your blind spots on others? To what degree others work around your blind spots and avoid confronting the real issues?

Sources: Fearless Leadership by Loretta Malandro, Leadership Blind Spots by Karen Blakeley, Leadership Blindspots by Robert Bruce Shaw