8 Ways to Conquer Your Leadership Blind Spots

You don't know this, but there are some serious blind spots in your leadership skills. These 8 tips will help you see them clearly, and conquer them for good.

APRIL 09, 2013

To be a successful leader or entrepreneur, we need to become intimate not only with our strengths but also with our blind spots, those aspects of our personality that can derail us. John C. Maxwell defines a blind spot as "an area in the lives of people in which they continually do not see themselves or their situation realistically."

All of us have blind spots. A Hay Group study shows that the senior leaders in an organization are more likely to overrate themselves and to develop blind spots that can hinder their effectiveness as leaders. Another study by Development Dimensions International Inc. found that 89 percent of front-line leaders have at least one blind spot in their leadership skills.

When we're in a leadership position, our blind spots can cause a great deal of damage, not only to our career but to the people who depend on us. How can you avoid this potential pitfall for yourself and your business? These eight tips can help.

1. Raise your awareness of the top blind spots. This Executive White Papershows the 10 blind spots that are most risky to personal and organizational success. The top three are: under-communicating strategic direction and priorities, poorly communicating expectations, and waiting for poor performance to improve.

Leaders are often surprised when stakeholders complain that there isn't enough communication about the business's vision and strategy. There is a communication gap between what leaders think is enough and what stakeholders need. Communication also extends to one-on-one leadership conversations. Leaders often fail to see the harm that is done to the organization when they consistently avoid having the difficult conversation with a non-performer, hoping the issue will resolve itself.

2. Don't hire in your own image. In the Top Ten Mistakes that Entrepreneurs Make, Guy Kawasaki includes one of the most pervasive blind spots that leaders often have: Hiring people who are like them instead of hiring individuals who have complementary skills. Hiring people who are similar results in organizational weaknesses. As Kawasaki puts it, "You need to balance off all the talents in a company."

RELATED: 3 Biggest Hiring Mistakes to Avoid

3. Establish a peer coaching arrangement. Every leader can benefit from peer coaching with leaders in other organizations. As a business owner, consider peer coaching with a noncompeting business that's the same size. In Five Ways To Find Out What You're Doing Wrong, Les McKeown says, "Most organizational blind spots are size-related, not industry-specific. In other words, your blind spots will have more in common with other businesses of a similar size and age than they will with other businesses in the same industry."

4. Examine your past history. To gain insight into behaviors that may not serve you well, think back on your past successes and failures as a leader. This kind of introspective inventory can yield some powerful insights. What do you need to stop doing? What do you need to do more of? What do you need to start doing?

5. Understand your habits. Blind spots are not necessarily weaknesses—they can also be habits or instinctive reactions to situations. For example, do your workload and stress cause you to interrupt people in meetings in order to speed up things? As Tom Peters shows in this video, most managers are 18-second listeners. If this describes you, work on developing more patience. It will enhance your interpersonal skills and improve your leadership effectiveness.

RELATED: 8 Ways to Change Your Bad Habits for Good

6. Place a high priority on relational skills. In Winning With People: Discover The People Principles That Work For You Every Time, John C. Maxwell states a simple, but powerful truth: People can usually trace their successes and failures to relationships in their lives. Every time something good or something difficult has happened to you, you can most likely point it back to some relationship you had. Studies show that only 15 percent of a person's success is determined by job knowledge and technical skills, and 85 percent is determined by an individual's attitude and ability to relate to other people. As Maxwell observes, many leaders have big relational blind spots. For example, some individuals may come across as arrogant, stomping on people in their quest to achieve results. They may not be aware of the need to curb their arrogance until it's too late. Others may not show much warmth and fail to pick up on the emotional clues that others give them. Make it a priority to develop healthy interpersonal skills.

7. Consider the downside of your strengths. It's a known fact that our gifts, taken to the extreme, can be liabilities. For example, one of your strengths might be that you are prudent in your decision-making. But what you view as caution, taken to the extreme, might result in fear of risk taking. In the long run, this can work against you. You may pride yourself in being a visionary, but taken to the extreme, you may bounce off in too many directions, frustrating others on the team by switching gears too often. List all your strengths, and reflect on how they manifest themselves in your leadership style. If you need help in this area, work with a mentor or coach. Consider asking your constituents for feedback. We rise as a leader when we have the courage to ask, "How are my actions affecting performance?"

8. Take an assessment to identify your blind spots. The Reiss Motivation Profile is a comprehensive, psychological assessment of what motivates us. It identifies 16 basic desires that will give you insight on why you do what you do and will help you identify your blind spots. For example, the desire for independence can end up being a blind spot when a leader refuses to admit that he can't do it all by himself. A quick, online assessment can be accessed at Find Your Blind Spot Now.

The Reiss Motivation Profile

The Reiss Motivation Profile® –
Business Version
The Reiss Motivation Profile® (RMP) is a standardized, comprehensive assessment of a person's needs, interests, motives, and life goals. The business version is used in coaching, team building, and leadership training.Ages: The RMP can be used with adults of every age.Length: This is 128-item self-report questionnaire.Administration: A client can complete the questionnaire online from any computer that is connected to the Internet, but the report is always emailed just to you. You then decide how best to share the findings with the client. Administration time is about 15 minutes. The results are immediate.Results: You receive a two-five page, plain language report and what this means for job performance, leadership, team/company loyalty, competitive spirit, risk taking, and numerous other business-relevant behavior.  The 16 needs are:

Acceptance, the need for approvalBeauty, the need for aesthetically-appealing environmentCuriosity, the need to understand Eating, strength of interest in foodExpedience, motivation to take practical advantage of opportunitiesFamily, the need to spend time with familyIdealism, the need to improve societyInterdependence, motivation to rely on othersOrder, the need to be organizedPhysical Activity, the need for exercisePower, the need to leadSaving, the need to collectSocial Contact, the need for friendsStatus, the need for prestige Tranquility, the need to play it safeVengeance, strength of competitive spirit

Norms: The normative database today includes more than 40,000 people from North America, Europe, and Asia.Validation: Steven Reiss, Ph.D., conducted scientific surveys and then used factor analytic methods to delineate 16 human needs. He and independent researchers, notably Ken Olson, Ph.D., then validated each of the 16 needs against personality measures (e.g., Big 5 scales, motivation scales, Anxiety Sensitivity Index, romance scales) as an indicator of behavior (e.g., interest in college major, club memberships, television viewing habits, participation in sports, participation in humanitarian causes, etc.). Reiss reported this work in 17 scientific journal articles -- three published in prestigious APA journals -- and three books. Since then, others have published books on the RMP. The instrument is gaining wide use. Practitioners usually can "see" the validity of the tool (meaning that the validity is apparent and not limited to statistics).