Deepening Awareness of Blind Spots

Recently a highly successful leader remarked, “Bill, you got me there.? I am worried about lack of awareness of my blind spots.”

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There are many ways to gain access to our blind spots.? Many of the most successful leaders choose a 360 degree assessment.? One of the most impactful assessments I have experienced is The Leadership Circle Profile, which gathers both creative and reactive behavioral tendencies.?

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As a data geek, I find it fascinating that these creative and reactive tendencies are statistically significantly correlated with one another and with Leadership Effectiveness. The extra “layer” of insights which creative and reactive tendencies provide, reveals many new insights.? Previously unseen correlations like how drive and self awareness are strongly negatively correlated.? These insights went undiscovered as I completed dozens of previous assessments.? More on how this works like a Lean Six Sigma transfer function to more effective leadership in a later post.

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Back to how to build awareness of your projections, even without an assessment. More awareness has helped me to become a better husband, father, boss, friend, uncle.

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One of the fastest ways to open the door to your shadow side is to become more aware of your projections.? The concept of projections is one I have begun to explore building on week one of The Unity Academy, a four week personals transformation journey masterfully facilitated by Robert (Bob) J. Anderson .

I am privilged to facilitate the weekly practice sessions globally for Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching.

As I facilitated this week’s session, we watched a video of the late Chris Coffey, coaching a leader who had just received a disappointing result.? The mini survey from his coworkers did not show the level of leadership growth this leader had aspired to achieve.? Ouch.

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Instead of “changing the subject” from disappointment to future opportunity, Chris doubled down and shared, “Based on what we have discussed and worked on together, quite frankly, I was a bit disappointed too.”

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Showing up disappointed felt to me like piling on; certainly not nice.? What makes this response from Chris so kind?

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As a hard core “optimist” my natural reaction has been (I have facilitated this same video session many times over the past years) to “project” my optimism on the disappointed leader, sharing that low results are common and mostly overcome.?

Instead, this time I could see the value of not projecting.? Stepping deep into the disappointment to unleash the value of this emotion for my conversation partner.?

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Embracing another persons disappointment still feels unnatural to me. ??That is how I am socially constructed.? Changing how we are constructed is hard work. And possible.

This moment of feeling not natural was a powerful insight into the shadow side of my optimism.? A focus for future reflections and practice.

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Perhaps you are interested in exploring your projections and shadow side?? If so, a gift below:

Invitation to a Thought ?Experiment

1.???? Where do you find yourself projecting? If your experience is like mine, you may find this difficult at first. Journalling, even just a few minutes each morning has accelerated the process of building awareness of where I am projecting. Journalling has revealed many frequent areas of my own projection:? optimism, work hard, fanatical health focus, etc.

2.???? What is this projecting telling you about yourself? And how do you want to step into and unleash the power of your shadow?

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If you share my curiosity for gaining even more awareness of your shadows in the spirit of being more kind and less nice, ?please leave a comment or check out The Unity Academy with ?this link.