Unexpected but in plain sight

The P’s of Leadership #3: What is your worst leadership attribute?

Do you know? What would others say? Would it align with what you believe it to be?

The concept of inattentional “blind spots” really hit home for me several years ago when reading Cathy N Davidson’s, “Now You See It.” One thing I appreciate about the concept is how intrinsically it ties to other powerful, yet similar dysfunctions such as confirmation bias or lesser known notions like inattentional deafness. But it promotes questions that the best leaders continually ask of themselves:

• How do I lead in practice?
• How do others need/want to be lead?
• What actions do I take as a leader which makes _____ (work, success, life, etc.) unnecessarily harder for those I lead?
• When my leadership advances difficult work, is it important and worth it?

There are certainly other questions and other ways to frame these questions, but the gist is simple: what are your blind spots, and do you actively try to unmask them?

I believe a lot of leaders fall into the thought trap of, “well at least I don’t….” But comparisons are often a strawman argument. It’s easy to look at other leader’s problematic traits and feel good about our ‘different’ approach that yields results we like. Similarly, when we are desirous of leadership, it’s natural to look at the person in that position today and think, “I would NEVER _____ like they do as a leader!”

But a blind spot is…well, a BLIND spot.? In other words, you don’t “see” it. In fairness, you may be looking at those other leader’s blind spots.? Perhaps they have no idea how their actions or behaviors are damaging others, culture, productivity, morale, etc. Or, it is possible that you don’t understand contextual matters requiring them to perform a focus shift, intentionally paying attention to something else for a season. (See last week’s blog for more info about this.)

One starting place for leaders is to look at the P’s of leadership image I’ve used for this blog. What two or three P’s do you naturally focus on?? Does that focus change subtly, consistently, wildly, or only under duress as shifts take place? Throughout this series I am suggesting that your focus should shift pretty regularly, if you want to remain effective as a leader.

But, while that kind of constant self-reflection is good, let me recommend something else. I want to propose that leaders (mid-level, senior, team, department, CEO, etc.) perform a (personal) 360-degree assessment regularly. I do this yearly, above and beyond other reviews my organization(s) perform more formally.? Here is how this concept can really hone your leadership.

1. Ask a colleague who is outside of your organization to be the aggregator of the information. (Buy them dinner or send them a gift card as it actually requires a bit of work.)
2. Identify the providers of information from your circles. Note, this does not solely need to include direct reports or those you report to. It might also include providers who know you well, colleagues who you interact with regularly, and even relationships ranging from friends to partners.

NOTE: I have found after doing this for more than a decade that 5-9 people is usually effective. These should be people you trust to be candid, open, and honest. Yes, these people may be regularly critical of you or your positions, but NO, these people do not need to include those that are “against” you or your leadership. The key is the word ‘reasonable’. Will this person provide a ‘reasonable’ view of you and your actions, based on the perspective they have? If so, they are a good choice here.? And the longer you are at a specific organization, the more people will eventually fall into this pool.

Importantly, warn the information providers this is coming.? Explain how it will work and that their answers will be anonymized so that they can be as candid as possible.

3. Develop a set of questions with the aggregator.? (Include how the answers to these questions will be collected.? Phone / Video Conference is ideal, but a Google form can also work.)? Be sure to include opportunities for positivity as well as criticism.

a.?????? What is __________’s superpower as a leader? (Explain)

b.?????? Do you feel ________ has any blind spots? (Explain)

c.?????? How effective do you feel ___________ is as a leader?

d.?????? How well does ___________ communicate? (Explain)

e.?????? Does ____________ enable / empower others? (If so, how?)

f.??????? Do people under __________ feel satisfied and seem to enjoy work? (Explain)

g.?????? Does _______ demonstrably and measurably succeed?? (Explain)

4. Here is where your aggregator matters. This person needs to take the information and turn it into a (truly) anonymized information set and share that with you.

5. Take notes. Take the information in. Reflect. Read. Explore what the emerged trends might say about you.

6. Importantly, follow up with the information givers.? Let them know not only that you appreciate their work, but how you intend to leverage the responses to change, transform, reinforce, etc.?

In practice, you might see the need to move from a focus on Positional-Mobility to one of Project-Management. You might find that those in your care are worried about the over prioritization of Productivity and not enough on Passion. You might even find that your dogged determination for Peace is actually hurting your People.

I hope this series is helping you with some tangible, actionable steps to improve your leadership. I also hope you are seeing how the P’s quadrants start to work together. More to come my friends!

Good luck and good leading.