Leadership Blindspots

"A blindspot is an unrecognized weakness or threat that has the potential to undermine a leader's success," explains author Robert Bruce Shaw. "Blindspots are tenacious and can reappear, causing problems over a leader's entire career."

These blindspots can cause great harm when leaders fail to see what is right in front of them. Compounding the challenge says Shaw is that:

"People who are smart and self-assured are often very skillful at justifying their thinking and behavior--to the point of being in denial about their weaknesses and the threats they face.
One of the burdens of moving up is that the complexity of the decisions leaders face increases at the same time as their ability to reveal their vulnerabilities decreases.

Blindspots are both the result of individual traits and situational factors. According to Shaw, there are 20 common leadership blindspots that fall under these four categories:

Self
Team
Company
Markets

Fortunately, Shaw's book, Leadership Blindspots: How Successful Leaders Identify and Overcome the Weaknesses That Matter, teaches readers how to identify and overcome their blindspots. He explains in detail why blindspots matter. And, then he teaches how to surface and overcome those blindspots, using examples, worksheets and other tools.

More specifically, the book shows leaders how to solicit feedback from those with insight about you.

And, it provides a list of actions for helping a leader build an all-important network of trusted advisors.

Robert Bruce Shaw

Among the 20 common leadership blindspots are:

Valuing being right over being effective
Failing to balance the what with the how
Trusting the wrong individuals
Failing to capture hearts and minds
Underestimating your competitors

To help you identify your blindspots before and as you read Shaw's book, take this online leadership blindspots survey self-assessment.

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