For executives and leaders to stay relevant in today’s dynamic environment, self-reflection is crucial. This means habitually asking themselves fundamental questions tailored to their specific organizational and societal contexts. By doing so, they expose themselves to their leadership blind spots – those areas where self-awareness is limited, and a realistic self-perception is hindered.
It would be helpful if we add three other fundamental questions:
1. To be more effective, what are the activities that we should stop doing right now?
2. What are the things that we can keep doing because they support progress?
3. What are new things that we should start doing, to create more positive impacts to the stakeholders and to our lives?
Are any of us truly free from the shackles of our blind spots?
Imagine this: you believe you’re a master delegator, empowering your team and maximizing efficiency. However, feedback from your team, colleagues, and even your manager paints a different picture. This gap in perception exposes a potential blind spot – an area in your leadership that requires growth.
It could also be the opposite: You feel like you are average in a certain competency, but the stakeholders (peers, direct reports, your boss) think that you are highly competent. This highlights that you have a hidden strength, which could be optimized to help you become a more effective leader.
Asking the same questions to your stakeholders periodically to give you feedback and, most importantly, feedforward, is valuable. They give feedback and feedforward according to the context of your daily behavior and your goal, fitting with the challenges you must overcome in the workplace and your daily life.
Don’t underestimate the dangers of leadership blind spots. These hidden weaknesses can have catastrophic consequences, especially for leaders with significant power within a company. A leader’s blind spot can act like an internal saboteur, hindering their effectiveness and potentially causing serious damage.
There are cases where executives feel uneasy about the stakeholders’ perceptions of their leadership behavior.