The two blind spots of leadership and why they matter
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
Rarely do I meet leaders that don’t have a hundred things going on at once. There is business, people, environmental, performance pressures, and more. Ask anyone who has moved into a leadership role what their first 90 days felt like. For me, it was like going from being a hobbyist beekeeper to being trapped in a bee house without a protective suit; it’s chaos.
Becoming a leader is like going from a hobbyist beekeeper to being trapped in a bee house without a protective suit; it’s chaos.
Unsurprisingly, you spend most of your time reacting to people and operational activity. The time spent on this is the same whether your results are going well or when they are not.
You fall into a rhythm of what you believe is the best way to operate and develop blind spots over time. It is like what Dunning–Kruger explains in his study on the ‘unknowns unknowns’: It’s a study to assess the relationship between your perceived ability vs. actual ability. The study showed that the less you knew, the higher you rated yourself on ability. Considering the impact, it is crucial to conduct objective self-reviews to reduce the gap between perceived ability vs. actual.
In this article, I wanted to cover two significant blind spots and make recommendations on how to improve them.
One. How you run your business vs. how the business runs you.
Let’s take an example of where your team is running well. You have reached or exceeded your targets (Kudos to you). But do you know how you did it?
What decisions did you make to put your team on this path?
Has the performance been consistent quarter on quarter?
How were you sure the new hire would be a top performer?
Are you sure your results will be replicated over the next two quarters?
What data insights have you reviewed to make you feel confident?
The most common answers to these questions are shallow, baked on top of the fact that you figured it out as you went. Based on your experience, you made decisions and only had time to consider short-term team impacts.
The blind spot is that many minor skills form an all-around set of skills that enable you to go fast, succeed and have a happy team. It would help if you dedicated time to learning various skills to make better plans and decisions. It would help if you had diverse learning sources to get a well-rounded skills tool belt. Peers, Mentors, Books, Articles, Videos, etc. provide knowledge and foresight.
There are decades of experience within your reach. Spend time learning from a variety of people and online sources. Develop your skills toolbelt best suited to grow your team and business. The more you learn, the more your perspective improves. It allows you to see further into the future and anticipate obstacles to avoid.
Two. How you lead the team vs. How the team think you lead them.
Teams come in all shapes and sizes. With differences in working style, culture, diversity, aspirations and performance.
Every leader wants to have the best team that produces the best results. We track results with scorecards, team sentiment surveys and attrition metrics. If all scores appear green, our job is done, and we are fantastic. But how much of this success is directly influenced by your long-range planning and day-to-day actions?
Did your team succeed when there were factors against them or only when the wind was blowing in the right direction?
Are they staying in your team by choice, or is changing roles too hard
Do the team score higher on the surveys because they feel bad entering their honest scores?
Does most of the team understand and agree with your vision? Or are they gossiping over WhatsApp DMs?
The blind spot is teams are like icebergs; what we can see through metrics is only part of the story. When things are green, it is easy to go with the flow. But, to build a scalable and performing team, you should spend time increasing your skills in people leadership. It would help if you spent time learning how to be a better listener, how to build trust, the psychology of motivating, and knowing when to dig into a statement to understand what is actually being said.
Spend time building relationships at different levels in your team. Build enough trust so people will challenge you and ask curious questions instead of broad statements.
We can’t please everybody, but we can continue to improve our skills. We can align how we lead to the leadership style the team would thrive under. We can reduce the distance between your title, and what happens daily that will impact the team’s morale and results.
You won’t find the time by accident to learn and build new skills. It would help if you were deliberate in replacing lower-value tasks with continuously developing yourself to reduce your blind spots.
Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not represent the views or opinions of my employer.