Blind spots: One of the top reasons clients work with a coach
Blind-spots
“The eyes are useless when the mind is blind”
This past week, I asked a few of my long-standing clients what is the most valuable outcome of our coaching work together. I was keen to understand what is most impactful and why they chose to invest valuable time and energy in coaching. One thing stood out – discovering blind spots.
So, what is a blind spot? According to the American Psychological Association Dictionary of Psychology it is a lack of insight or awareness, often persistent, about a specific area of one’s behaviour or personality, typically because recognition of one’s true feelings and motives would be painful.
Why is this so important to senior leaders? It seems at some level we know what research tells us: we are not great at assessing ourselves accurately. Since most challenges and conflicts at work are as a result of the impact of our behaviour on others rather than our having bad intentions, if we want to have different outcomes and impacts, then we would do well to better understand how team members view us.
As Shafer, Bryan, and Reimer point out from their research (see sources below):
“Leaders are mostly oblivious to the way their colleagues view their weaknesses, and those blind spots can limit leaders’ opportunities, impede their performance, and ultimately drag down their career”.
Many of you will be familiar with 360 feedback processes to facilitate this self-awareness. What is interesting is that Shafer et.al. ‘s research found that when you asked the leader’s team members what three things, they think the leader should work on to be a more effective leader, there was very little correlation between what they said and what the leader self-identified as their top 3 areas of improvement. The executives and their respondents knew that the data was confidential, anonymous and not shared with the company making it perhaps easier to be frank. Nonetheless, the point is made, self-awareness gaps exist and discovering the most impactful ones to work on can have major benefits for you, your performance and your organisation.
Yet, facing ourselves can be hard and painful as the APA definition suggests. It requires courage to overcome our self-serving bias –a tendency to protect our egos by attributing our successes to our abilities and our failures to external factors. Unless we do, we are likely to inhibit our ability to truly face our blind spots and grow into the exceptional leaders we could be.
This is perhaps why a trusted coaching relationship enables us to explore honestly what is hard for high functioning leaders to admit. From my mini-poll I heard first-hand how impactful real-time candid feedback is in a coaching relationship and how this can facilitate leaders growth in effectiveness and impact.
I would love to explore how I can make this difference and impact in your life as a leader:
When you are ready, book a no-obligation discovery call with me here
Want to read more about blind spots and the power of facing them:
Shafer, J., Bryant, A. and Reimer, D. (2020) Revealing leaders blind spots
Edmondson, A.C. and Dimmock, A.W. (2020) Don’t get blinded by your blindspots
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