It doesn’t matter how great of a leader you become—how experienced, how deliberate, how learned. You’re still going to have some areas in which you’re weak—areas in which you could stand some improvement.
Many great leaders don’t actually recognize these areas in themselves, which means they don’t improve, and don’t seek assistance when they really need it.
These are your leadership blind spots, but they don’t have to be. It is possible to identify them and work toward improvements—making yourself a more robust and multi-talented leader than ever.
Let me offer you a few tips for doing exactly that.
Finding and Conquering Your Leadership Blind Spots
- Ask other leaders and mentors what their blind spots are. Help develop your own awareness of some of the most common leadership blind spots that are out there. You’ll probably hear other executives list communication or organization or delegation as some of their top areas for improvement. Perhaps this can spur some introspection on your own part.
- Hire people who are different than you—people who have different skill sets and different areas of strength. Not only will this help bring your own shortcomings into relief, but it will help you cover for them and protect against them.
- Solicit feedback from your team members. Make it clear that you value their comments, even constructive criticism, and invite them to “review” your leadership during their own annual employee reviews.
- Think about some of your own habits. That can be a good way of identifying strengths and weaknesses. For instance, if you have a habit of arriving at meetings late, then perhaps organization is a weakness. And if you have a bad habit of stress eating, what that tells you is that you need to develop tools for stress management.
- Make a list of your strengths—but consider how they could come with liabilities. For example, persuasive and commanding speakers sometimes have a hard time listening to others; those who are decisive and dedicated may struggle with delegation.
Spend some time thinking about the ways in which your leadership could be improved; that kind of self-awareness can be invaluable!