Three Common Leadership Blind Spots Every Leader Should Address

Every leader has blind spots that shape their results, relationships, and reputation. Leadership growth does not happen by accident. Growth happens when you shine a light on your bad habits and incorrect assumptions. The challenge is that it is difficult to recognize these issues in yourself. Leaders who confront their blind spots expand their influence and earn their teams' confidence and trust. In today's episode of The Champion Forum Podcast, Jeff reveals three blind spots that quietly hold leaders back and explains how to eliminate them.

Three Blind Spots Leaders Face

1. Self-Awareness

Many leaders believe they are self-aware, but few truly are. It isn't easy to see what others observe from the outside. Senior leaders are especially susceptible because they sit at the top of the organizational chart, and upward feedback is often limited.

Self-awareness is not just understanding your personality or preferences. It is understanding the impact you have on other people. That is the ultimate question for leaders. How do people experience you? Their experience matters far more than your self-perception.

When leaders lack self-awareness, they repeat the same behaviors, grow frustrated with the same outcomes, and wonder why their teams seem hesitant, confused, or guarded. The issue is rarely competence. It is almost always awareness. Without awareness, you cannot correct what needs to change.

Practical ways to grow in self-awareness:

Ask your team two powerful questions:

• What do I do that helps you?

• What do I do that makes your job harder?

Listen with intention.

Be slow to respond. Accept the opportunity to learn about your habits, tendencies, and the impact they create. Strong emotions can also reveal blind spots. Pay attention to the scenarios that trigger intense reactions. You do not need a large group to speak into your growth. You need at least one honest voice willing to tell you where you may be going wrong.

Q: Who helps you be more self-aware? How have you responded to other people when they draw attention to a blind spot? How could you adjust your reaction to invite more feedback? Describe someone you know who is very self-aware. What practices do they have that help them keep a realistic view of themselves?

2. Ego

An inflated ego quickly erodes leadership credibility. Ego convinces you that your way is best, keeps you from asking for help, causes you to dominate conversations, and leads you to dismiss other perspectives. It blinds you to your own shortcomings. Ego may win in the short term, but in the long term, it destroys trust. Over time, people stop offering feedback and new ideas.

Ways to keep ego in check:

1. Practice saying, "I might be wrong." This simple phrase communicates humility and willingness to learn.

2. Celebrate other people's ideas publicly, which shows your team that great ideas are not a threat to you.

3. Do one thing this week that requires you to be a learner again. Leaders who consistently learn and grow do not operate from ego.

Q: Describe a leader who had a big ego. What were some of the telltale signs? How did people respond to them? What was the long-term outcome?

3. Unexamined Assumptions

Healthy assumptions help leaders think like a visionary, but unexamined assumptions can become major blind spots. Leaders naturally form mental shortcuts based on past experiences. While patterns can be helpful, every situation deserves fresh evaluation.

Ask yourself: What is new about this situation that was not true before? What factors might cause me to respond differently this time?

Strategies for challenging assumptions:

• Validate whether your assumption is actually true.

• Avoid using words like always and never.

Q: What assumptions do you make at work or in your personal life? How do these assumptions affect your decisions? What could happen if you operated on an incorrect assumption?

Application Activities:

1. Revisit a longstanding process and ask, "If we were starting fresh today with a brand new organization, would we still do it this way?" This simple exercise encourages innovation and prevents stagnation.

2. Choose one upcoming meeting or interaction this week and decide in advance how you want people to experience you. Identify one behavior you will intentionally adjust. For example, you might choose to ask more questions before offering your viewpoint, pause before responding, or acknowledge someone else's idea first. After the meeting, reflect on how this change impacted the interaction and what it revealed about your self-awareness or assumptions.