Revealing Leaders’ Blind Spots | Strategy + Business

The effectiveness of a leader has a disproportionate impact on important outcomes in most aspects of life—from business, education, sports, and politics, to name a few. And while it is a good practice for leaders to continuously reflect on their leadership style and determine ways to improve, the speed at which the business environment, workplace, and workforce continue to change makes this type of introspection especially important. In many cases, leaders are increasingly finding that they need to learn new skills and behaviors, hone existing ones, and abandon those that detract from leadership effectiveness in a new world of work. Before this can happen, however, leaders must develop self-awareness in 1) what is important to leadership effectiveness 2) their effectiveness in these areas. However, as indicated in this article, leaders continue to have “blind spots” in what they think they need to improve and the weaknesses identified by those they lead. The research findings from this article indicate the biggest blind spots for leaders are in areas of being visible and accessible, development of teams and upcoming leaders, vision, strategy, and organizational priorities. According to the data, “there is a 96 percent likelihood that leaders do not understand that their organizations perceive them as ivory-tower executives who do not provide adequate clarity on the company’s strategy.” Several other insights are provided and can be used as organizations help their leaders develop greater self-awareness of these blind spots and put development efforts in place to address them.