Discover Your Leadership Blind Spots

From insisting on doing too much alone to avoiding confrontation, leadership blind spots are common and can be lethal for business

Too often, leaders demonstrate behavior that sabotages their success and undermines both their team and their organization. To succeed as a manager, you need to learn how to recognize your blind spots and overcome them.

Let's not kid ourselves. We all have blind spots—unproductive behaviors that are invisible to us but glaring to everyone else. Our behavioral blind spots create dire and unintended consequences: They corrupt decision-making, reduce our scope of awareness, create enemies, silos, and camps, destroy careers, and sabotage business results.

In good times blind spots are annoying and frustrating; in tough times they can be lethal.

No one is immune to blind spots, of course. But leaders are particularly vulnerable. It's enough that they must often navigate massive change and cope with stressful situations every day. But add to this the overpowering belief that many leaders shoulder: "I should have all the answers, I should know what to do, and I should be able to handle challenges alone." For many, the need to be right becomes much stronger than the need to be effective. And only the most confident leaders are willing to surround themselves with people who will point out what they're doing wrong—and be rewarded for their honesty. More often, everyone is forced to endure the boss' weaknesses in silence.

Blind spots are not flaws; nor are they malicious. They are automatic behaviors. The real culprits are not the blind spots themselves. The problem is when they are unidentified and mismanaged.

There are 10 blind spots that persistently knock people off the career ladder and undermine organizational performance. Below are ones that I have come across most often in my work as a leadership consultant.

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See Your Blind Spots

We all have blind spots—even the best and greatest of leaders. And too often those unproductive behaviors that are invisible to us but are glaring to everyone else create dire consequences for you, your team, and your company. Here's a look at 10 common blind spots for leaders and managers, and advice for recognizing and overcoming them.

1. Going It Alone
The symptoms: Rejecting offers of support, withdrawing from others, not talking about your stress or anxiety, not including others in decision-making, leaving people to fend for themselves.

Why it's damaging: Isolating yourself and shouldering the burden alone creates anxiety and uncertainty in others. When you are missing in action, frustration builds and people fill in the blanks, spread rumors, and withdraw their discretionary effort.

What to do: Talk with others about your tendency to solve problems by yourself. Let others know that you are committed to working in partnership but you need their support. Ask them to point out when you are withdrawing so you can stop excluding and start including.

2. Being Insensitive to Your Impact on Others
The symptoms: Not recognizing when you have a negative impact, being insensitive to cultural differences, expecting others to react the same way you do, criticizing and devaluing others, dismissing reactions of others as their problem.

Why it's damaging: Insensitivity and a low level of awareness results in an unsafe environment. People emotionally disengage, work around the leader, and do not speak up for fear of repercussions.

What to do: Find out how you impact others by asking for their candid feedback before you end a conversation. Ask: "Do you feel that I listen to you? Do you believe that I have confidence in you? Have I let you down in any way? Have I said anything that is limiting our working relationship?"

3. An 'I Know' Attitude
The symptoms: Having an answer for everything, rigid and fixed views, lack of intellectual curiosity, not listening, diminishing what others have to say, arguing with everyone who does not agree with your point of view, refusing to explore alternatives and options.

Why it's damaging: Others feel devalued, angry, and insignificant. Innovation and creativity come to a standstill as the "I know" leader dominates conversations and shuts down new ideas.

What to do: Recognize that your blind spot causes you to miss important information and ideas. Without fail, ask: "What have I missed? What am I not seeing? How am I limiting new possibilities?"

4. Avoiding Difficult Conversations
The symptoms: Softening the message, not delivering the tough message, staying on the surface of issues, avoiding discussions that evoke an emotional response, talking in generalizations instead of providing specific and real examples.

Why it's damaging: What you don't tell others, they will make up and discuss in the hallways. Leaders who are not direct raise anxiety levels to staggering heights, resulting in a lack of focus on business needs. People become more fixated on what the leader is not saying or disclosing than on doing their jobs.

What to do: Start the conversation with a positive context and tell others that you are committed to their success and to the partnership. Then ask if they are open to your coaching or feedback. Most will readily respond yes. Then say what you have to say. Responsibly

5. Blaming Others or Circumstances
The symptoms: Always having a reason, excuse, or explanation ("Yeah, but…"); pointing the finger at others; treating others as the enemy or opposition; building silos rather than supporting enterprise perspective; criticizing and complaining; invalidating ideas and people.

Why it's damaging: Leaders who blame others are perceived as petty, small, and divisive. They polarize the organization and divide people into camps. To avoid being caught in the line of fire, people stay below the radar and wait and see rather than take action.

What to do: Stop pointing out what others did not do, what they should have done, and how ineffective they are. Ask yourself: How has my behavior contributed to this problem or breakdown? Take accountability publicly by owning your role in the problem. Fix yourself, not others.

6. Treating Commitments Casually
The symptoms: Not making commitments, not keeping them, not delivering on time, always maintaining an escape hatch to avoid being held accountable, not providing a clear "I commit" or "I do not commit," making casual promises with no intention of keeping them.

Why it's damaging: When people cannot trust your word in all matters large and small, they discount you, reduce your credibility, and imitate your behavior. The environment becomes lackluster with sloppy promises, accepting excuses over results, and not holding each other accountable.

What to do: Be crystal clear about what you are committing to and what you are not committing to. If you must revoke a commitment, communicate prior to the promised deadline. Take accountability for your impact, and ask "Is there a new commitment I am willing to make?"

7. Conspiring Against Others
The symptoms: Making negative comments about others; silently endorsing a negative point of view by not speaking up; displaying nonverbal cues of disapproval, disappointment, or disinterest; talking about people, not to them; enlisting others as co-conspirators against a person or group.

Why it's damaging: When you conspire against others, you are perceived as dishonest, deceitful, and weak. People withdraw their trust and constantly wonder what you are saying about them. Your behavior erodes partnerships and you are unable to influence change or people.

What to do: Practice catching yourself when you make negative comments about others. The moment you notice yourself conspiring against others, stop and take accountability. Apologize for your impact, restate what you have to say in a supportive manner, and immediately talk to the person with whom you have an unresolved issue.

8. Withholding Emotional Commitment
The symptoms: Complying and going along with a decision, resisting change and withholding support, withdrawing your passion and enthusiasm, agreeing intellectually but not committing emotionally, going through the motions.

Why it's damaging: Leaders who are not transparent are viewed as disingenuous, disengaged, and inauthentic. When you withhold your emotional commitment you separate yourself from others and they notice it. Your behavior slows or stops change. If you are not committed, why should they be?

What to do: When you are unable to fully commit, communicate and share where you are stuck instead of letting your behavior do the talking. Make a clear and direct request to the appropriate person for what you need in order to commit intellectually and emotionally.

9. Not Taking a Stand
The symptoms: Lack of clarity and direction on small and large issues, not making decisions, reversing decisions that you have already made, high levels of ambiguity, lack of decisive action, paralyzed teams.

Why it's damaging: People lose confidence in leaders who wait for consensus, are slow to make decisions, or are unwilling to take a clear and decisive stand. Ineffectiveness results as others spend their time trying to second-guess what you really want.

What to do: Stop making others read your mind and be clear about what you want and what you are willing to commit to. You can always take a stand—even when you have not made a decision—by saying, "I am not ready to make this decision today. But I will give you my answer by the end of next week."

10. Tolerating 'Good Enough'
The symptoms: Failure to anticipate and embrace change, maintaining status quo or only making incremental changes, defending why things are fine as they are, refusing to investigate solutions that are outside of your comfort zone, rejecting new ideas, reacting instead of being proactive.

Why it's damaging: Others are discouraged and resigned when the leader does not demand excellence in all areas. No one wants to be second best; people want to be on the winning team. Leaders lose support and enthusiasm as people resign to "nothing will ever change here."

What to do: Examine what is holding you back: What are you tolerating and where are you resigned that this is as good as it gets? Raise your level of leadership awareness and effectiveness and lead by example. This will inspire others to do the same.

Share the Burden

The first is the instinct to go it alone. In my experience, that is the No. 1 blind spot. It's an obvious peril when dealing with self-sufficient, independent leaders who have a need to be perceived as strong and tough. If you have a tendency to shoulder the burdens of life by yourself and unintentionally exclude others—colleagues, friends, and even family—then you need to be aware that this is a blind spot.

Some of the symptoms of going-it-alone include rejecting offers of support, refusing to ask for help, not talking about your stress, pressure, or anxiety, isolating and withdrawing in group situations, and not including others in your thinking or in decision-making. In short, you are stoic.

You may think that your independent streak is a sign of strength. In actual fact, your behavior leaves others feeling frustrated, angry, and devalued. People view you as missing in action and acting as a team of one. Instead of empowering your team, you undercut it by refusing to share responsibilities, information, and decision-making. Your employees lose their enthusiasm, and you lose their support.

The second blind spot that I have frequently encountered over the past three decades is the tendency of leaders to be insensitive to their impact on others. They're simply unaware of the damage their behavior can create. They have a low threshold for picking up on the reactions of others, perhaps because they have never bothered themselves too much with what others think.

Impact Awareness

The potential perils of insensitivity become heightened when you ascend to a leadership spot. Suddenly, you control the destiny of people around you. If you're making repeated blunders that you don't even see, there's little option for your team but to walk out the door.

If this blind spot applies to you, your intentions may be positive but your behavior is ineffective. The rub is that people judge you by your behavior, not by your intentions. Symptoms include expecting others to respond the same way you do, not recognizing cultural differences, and dismissing feedback from others about your behavior.

When you are insensitive to others, people tend to withdraw their trust. They'll work around you. At best, they may tolerate you. Others may marginalize you and, if they can, ultimately fire you. Sensitivity isn't about being soft.

It's about being aware of the signals and needs and contributions of the people around you. It's critical to effective leadership.

Finally, I'm frequently struck by the tendency of many managers to avoid difficult conversations. This might seem odd when the previous two blind spots may evoke the image of a boss who doesn't particularly care about what people think. But the truth is that most of us dislike feeling uncomfortable or creating discomfort in others. We avoid confrontations, especially in the workplace.

Bottling It Up

The fear among some managers is that they will open Pandora's box and be faced with a negative or emotional reaction, conflict that will escalate, or a relationship that cannot be recovered. Some might be nervous about a lawsuit or resort to less obvious ways of making their dissatisfaction known.

If this is one of your blind spots, you have a dilemma: what you cannot talk about, you cannot resolve. When you avoid tough conversations, problems are repeated and issues escalate. Worse, your behavior sends a message that unacceptable behavior or performance will be tolerated in the organization. You essentially give poor performers the same treatment as your stars and, worse, the people on your team don't really know where they stand.

Symptoms include softening your message, talking in generalizations instead of providing specific examples, and expecting others to read between the lines instead of actually telling them where they're falling short.

When you avoid difficult conversations, you are not doing anyone a favor. People may be confused by your mixed messages. They don't understand why they're passed over for plum assignments or promotions because no one has confronted them about their work. They think you don't notice. Everyone else thinks you don't care.

You can't do anything about your blind spots until you can recognize them when they occur. The first step is to ask others for their candid feedback. Your opinion about how you think your behavior affects others isn't sufficient. The reason these behaviors recur is that you're not aware of what you're doing. Second, take accountability for your impact and stop justifying your behavior by defending your positive intentions. Third, in the absence of a structured process, ask those who do see certain weaknesses to coach you the moment your blind spot surfaces. Finally, stop the behavior the instant you see it by acknowledging it.

Be courageous and say something like: "I'm beating around the bush. My commitment is to give you direct feedback. Let me start again." Then, start again. Your goal is not to be perfect. It's to check your blind spot and recover quickly.
- BusinessWeek. September 1, 2009