Recognizing And Overcoming Leadership Blind Spots

Welcome to the Vantage HR Influencers Podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Vantage Circle, the simple and AI-powered rewards and recognition platform for employee engagement. It is disappointing to realize that so many employees are dissatisfied with their work, and the leading cause is leadership. That takes us to the subject of blind spots in leadership. There has been a lot of research done on leadership blind spots, and it has revealed a lot of them. In this episode, let's talk about these blind spots that lead to patterns of disengagement and self-destruction, and what leaders can do about it.

Susmita Sarma: Hi everyone, I'm Susmita from the Vantage HR Influencers Podcast. For this episode, please help me welcome my guest, Paul Glover. Paul is a performance coach with 20 plus years of experience as a federal court trial lawyer. He is a passionate storyteller who believes in the power of narrative to influence and educate in business, personal life, and even in courtrooms. Welcome to the show, Paul.

Paul Glover: Thank you for having me, Susmita. I appreciate the opportunity to converse with you and your audience.

Susmita Sarma: Thank you so much for joining me once again, Paul. Before we start, Paul, it would be great if you can tell us a brief about your professional experience.

Paul Glover: It's been a journey, as with most people, of ups and downs. For three years, I was a practicing attorney in Chicago and federal court with labor employment law. Because of my personal issues, that caused me to be imprisoned for five and a half years and I lost my law license. When I got out, I made a decision about what I was going to do for the remainder of my career, the remainder of my life. At that point, I decided, as I looked at my skill sets, that I would be a good coach. I'm familiar with many of the issues and emotions that people in the C-suite have to take into account and learn to cope with. Based on my skill sets, I decided to become a coach, about 20 years ago, and have built a very professional coaching practice.

Susmita Sarma: You are working with a lot of leaders, right? That's why we have selected the topic of how leaders can identify blind spots that lead to patterns of disengagement and self-destruction. Let's start with the topic, Paul. How do you like to describe a blind spot, and how do you like to describe a leadership blind spot?

Paul Glover: Blind spots, by definition, are difficult to see, and we all have them. I believe they come from our brand, personality, and upbringing. Based on those blind spots, we make decisions that are not necessarily beneficial, either to ourselves, to our team, or to our organization, if we are in fact leaders of the organization. Because they're built in, there is a tendency to not even know they exist. So it's imperative for leaders to go through the process of finding out what their blind spots are, and then making decisions about how to not allow the blind spots to cause them to make destructive decisions.

Susmita Sarma: So I can understand from what you said that it is possible for leaders to see their own blind spots, right?

Paul Glover: It is. By the way, I never say impossible, because obviously, if you are paying attention, what you see is how people react to your actions, to the decisions that you make. And if you are attentive and you see that the reaction is adverse, then you are in a position to ask the question, why? Why are they reacting that way? The problem is, because blind spots are so strong, we often don't look at the reaction. We simply move on to the next issue. So it's not impossible, but it's extraordinarily difficult. And I find that most leaders, especially with blind spots, because they are very emotional, have a tendency not to pay attention to the reaction that other people are having when those blind spots take control and cause a leader to make a decision.

Susmita Sarma: Right. So what other signs can leaders look for in order to uncover blind spots that lead to disengagement and self-destruction?

Paul Glover: Well, since most leaders are on a team, when we look at how the team is performing, because clearly teams are reflective of leadership, if the team is performing poorly, rather than blame the team members, team leaders need to first take a look at their own performance. Through that microscope, that filter, the conversation becomes about why they are doing what they're doing, and why they're doing it in a specific way. So the poor performance or disengagement of the team is a reflection of the leader, and the leader's blind spots having that negative impact.

Susmita Sarma: Right. So what is the best way for them to become aware of these blind spots? How can they gather the courage to see themselves more clearly?

Paul Glover: Well, first, that's a great question because of the word courage. You have to want to change before you even start to become self-aware. I believe the first step in this process is being self-aware. That means you have to understand the need for being self-aware, and then recognize that it's going to be hard work. So you have to commit to the process. Once you've committed to self-awareness, you then need to find what I call your fool, someone in your life who has the ability to tell you the truth about your blind spots, someone you trust, and who has the desire to help you. Without that combination of trust and the desire to help, we will not engage in a conversation about our blind spots. It's up to leaders to find those people, and they're all around us. In fact, someone may already be giving us advice that we're not paying attention to. So we need to search them out, identify them, give them the psychological safety they need to tell us the truth about our blind spots, and then thank them. Be grateful for them in our life, and do something about the blind spots. Once you recognize you have an issue, you need to take some action to resolve it.

Susmita Sarma: So before starting this podcast, when I was researching this topic, I came across a few different kinds of blind spots: the strategic thinking blind spot, the "I know everything" blind spot, the lone ranger blind spot, and also the unconscious bias blind spot. Would you like to brief us on all of these?

Paul Glover: Absolutely. Let me take them out of order. I think the first one leaders are most impacted by is the "I know everything" blind spot. It's a huge blind spot, because leaders believe they're required to know everything, and that not knowing everything, or not pretending to know everything, is a sign of weakness in leadership. That's absolutely not true. Leaders need to recognize that it's impossible to know everything, and that they need to stop treating that as a blind spot. They need to recognize there are areas where they don't know, and be upfront about it. That one has the most impact on people, because we don't listen to anyone else's opinion. We already "know," and we actually stop people, by our words and actions, from telling us their opinion or giving us the input we need as leaders to make the right decision. So we end up making the wrong decisions.

Moving on, the lone ranger blind spot is this: it's just me, there is no team, everything is dependent totally on me, and what I do determines whether or not the organization has success. Once again, that's a fallacy. It's a team game, and because it's a team game, there are other players. We're not by ourselves, but our blind spots often cause us not to accept the support of a team. What we do instead is come in very direct, we just tell people what to do and hope that they do it, when in reality we need to ask them what we should do.

On the unconscious bias blind spot: absolutely, we all have those biases, and to ignore the fact that we have them is to allow them to control our decision-making. Our biases, whether racial, or based on gender or age, factor into our behavior, and admitting that they exist is the first step to overcoming them. The problem with bias is that it defeats our ability to improve, because we won't allow the people around us to participate in a meaningful way once that bias takes hold, and we end up discouraging people from participating.

And the last one, the strategic thinking blind spot: it's interesting that we do strategic planning on an annual basis, but then we believe strategic thinking isn't part of that process, because thinking requires that we be resilient and adaptive enough to change the plan. We often believe that once we've got a plan in place, we're not allowed to change it. The reality is, that mindset defeats most leaders and most organizations. The idea of being locked into a plan just because that's how the decision was originally made needs to go away. Flexibility and adaptiveness matter, especially now. If nothing else, the pandemic has shown us that we need to be flexible about every aspect of how we lead.

Susmita Sarma: Amazing. Well, the other one I came across was the unconscious bias blind spot, but I think that's one of the most critical ones for leaders.

Paul Glover: Absolutely. Again, first, you have to accept that we have these biases, and understand what they are, that's part of self-awareness. If you don't think you have them, you're not really understanding your own personality or upbringing. It requires a very detailed examination of how we're making our decisions, especially when they're about other people, and whether those other people, because of their race or their background, are allowed to participate in a meaningful way. We often exclude people from the process because of this unconscious bias, without even verifying it. If you don't examine why people aren't engaging with you, you won't recognize those unconscious biases. That's why we have to find someone we can trust who will point them out to us, a coach or a mentor. That's a function they serve. They're willing to engage with you, and they'll point out that your decision is flawed because of these blind spots, especially unconscious bias. Unconscious bias and blind spots, we don't recognize them existing until we have a reason to look, and that requires somebody else, so that we do see them, and then we do something about them.

Susmita Sarma: So leaders have to ask people for honest feedback, isn't it? But I think that's where leaders sometimes don't want to go to people and ask for their opinions.

Paul Glover: Sure. Often it hurts to hear about issues that are negative and having a negative impact. It's always easier and more comfortable just to ignore them. When I start an engagement with a leader, the first thing we do is a 360-degree review with the people who report to them, because I need to hear from that group what they see as the leader's strengths and weaknesses, not what the leader tells me they are. Based on that feedback and input from the team that reports to the leader, I'm able to talk to them constructively about the areas they need to improve. Without that, very few people are going to honestly test themselves. They need results from other people, people they respect, count on, and need support from. That's when it has an impact, and often it hurts to hear. You've got to make sure they understand this is a no-pain, no-gain approach to leadership. You only get better if you know what you have to improve. In terms of communication, most leaders believe they're fantastic communicators, when they practically believe in telepathy, they believe that if they think it, other people should just know it. And when they get information back from the team that they're a poor communicator, they're normally shocked by that. That gives you the opportunity to say, okay, let's accept what they have to say, and now let's work on improving the process.

Susmita Sarma: Brilliant. Moving forward, Paul, let's talk about leadership coaching, that's your area. How can leadership coaching help in the treatment of psychological blind spots in leadership?

Paul Glover: Well, that's based on the person who wants to be coached, and the coach establishing a level of trust that says, "I am in this relationship because I want you to get better." It should be about improvement, and giving you the chance to just process, as your coach, based on the fact that I want nothing more for you than for you to get better. With that level of trust, there's the opportunity to be objective and collect input that shows the areas that need improvement. The coaching process works, but it's a hard process. People come into coaching not fully understanding that they have to get better, and honestly, nobody really wants to go to a coach, if they already believe they're good, they don't go. So once you know you need it, we have to get you to where you need to be, because most people don't know their blind spots. Coaching involves interaction and input from those who interact with the leader, and that's how we're able to identify those blind spots. Then we help the leader not only recognize them, but deal with them, because coaching happens periodically, you're not there every day as a coach, that's not how it works. I might interact every other week, but there's that 14 days in between where we're not talking, unless there's an emergency. So the concept of leadership coaching is to identify the blind spots, but then put in place a proactive plan that requires the leader to not only know what the blind spot is, but agree to do something about it. At the end of two weeks, we're able to have a conversation about what they did and the impact of doing it. Based on that kind of regimen over a period of time, you're able to see and measure the improvement. A lot of leaders need to see that there's a return on the investment of the time and expense of coaching, which is why it's very important, at the end of the coaching engagement, to be able to show that.

Susmita Sarma: So Paul, you deserve a lot of credit for helping leaders be better and making workplaces happier. Thanks a lot for your efforts and dedication, and especially for the time you're giving us today, I really appreciate that. Before we end today, would you like to give some tips to our listeners?

Paul Glover: Absolutely. The first thing I'd say is you do need to find your fool, the person you trust who cares enough about you to be honest about your blind spots. Then you need to accept that information as accurate and start to change your behavior. You cannot change your personality, but you can change your behavior, and that requires a structured approach, with goals established, a time frame established, and then actions that take place on a regular basis to show improvement. So people need to accept this as a process, it doesn't happen overnight. It takes a long time to change behavior because it's difficult. And by the way, the hardest people to coach are those who are already successful, because you're asking them to change how they do what they do when they've already been successful. My intention is that coaching is about seeing and achieving potential. Wherever you're at now, that doesn't mean you should stop, potential is more. You need to recognize that you want more, and accept that this requires hard work to recognize and achieve your potential. It's a program that requires commitment from both the coach and the person being coached. So my suggestion is: find someone you trust who is going to tell you the truth, and then set that program in place. Don't be fuzzy about it, get very precise. Identify a particular area you're going to get better at, and then put the program in place with the coach so that it happens. By the way, coaches provide accountability, and a lot of leaders don't have that level of accountability, because no one is in a position to hold them accountable, they're the leader. That's why an outside perspective has impact.

Susmita Sarma: Brilliant, Paul. Thanks for sharing all of this information and knowledge with all our listeners. So finally, we're moving to the end of this podcast. We'd like to know how our listeners can reach out to you.

Paul Glover: Absolutely. I have a website that allows contact, it's PaulGloverCoaching.com, and they can reach me there by email. I'll also drop a link to my LinkedIn. So anyone who wants to have a further discussion with me, I'm always open to that, and happy to take the opportunity to answer any questions from members of your audience based on our discussion.

Susmita Sarma: Sure, I'll put up your contact details in the show notes, Paul. Thank you so much for joining me on the Vantage HR Influencers Podcast.

Paul Glover: Well, thank you so very much. It's been a real pleasure, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk to both you and your audience. Thank you so much.