September 7, 2025
I once worked with a Senior Director who was burning out from consistently long hours and an overwhelming task list. I could see the warning signs in the quality of their work, their energy levels, and their presence in meetings. Concerned about their performance, health, and longevity, I decided to have a conversation about what was happening.
They confirmed my observations, and we began working together to find solutions. One of the first steps was reviewing their ongoing initiatives to see what could be removed from their plate. The problem became immediately apparent.
They were spending more than 10 hours a week overseeing and directly working on tasks that belonged in their managers' job descriptions. When I asked why, they responded, "I want to support them and make sure that they succeed." While well-intentioned and showing the right leadership attitude, their approach was actually hampering their team's development while burning them out in the process.
What struck me most was how completely unaware they were that their great intentions were harming both the team and themselves. This isn't a rare occurrence.
This individual was struggling with a blind spot—an area of their leadership practice that, while invisible to them, was having a major impact on their team. Every leader has these blind spots, regardless of seniority or skill level. This particular director was a high performer who consistently ranked in the top 5% of the company.
High-performing leaders can actually be more susceptible to their blind spots because producing great outcomes creates confirmation bias. When you're succeeding, it becomes harder to find motivation for deep self-analysis or to seek honest feedback from bosses, peers, or team members.
The cost of not proactively uncovering and addressing your blind spots is significant: stunted performance and limited growth, both for you and your team.
Based on my experience coaching executives, there are six blind spots that consistently limit leadership effectiveness. These aren't character flaws—they're common patterns that develop as we climb the leadership ladder, often rooted in behaviors that once made us successful.
The Pattern: You step in when quality matters, redo work that's "almost there," or hover over important projects because you can do it faster and better.
What You Tell Yourself: "It's easier to do it myself" or "The client relationship is too important to risk."
The Real Cost: Your team stops stretching because they know you'll take over when stakes are high. You become the bottleneck for growth, working longer hours while your people plateau at 70% of their capability.
Remote Reality Check: This blind spot intensifies with distributed teams. When you can't see the work happening, you might take back control of digital deliverables or jump into virtual meetings to "help" more than necessary.
The Pattern: You spend 80%+ of your time solving immediate problems, fixing processes, and handling details while strategic opportunities pass you by.
What You Tell Yourself: "I need to stay close to operations" or "This crisis needs my attention right now."
The Real Cost: You're working 50-60 hour weeks as an expensive individual contributor rather than a strategic leader. Your team becomes dependent on your problem-solving instead of developing their own capabilities.
Remote Reality Check: Virtual work can trap you deeper in tactical mode—responding to every Slack notification, joining every call, and checking every deliverable because you feel less connected to the big picture.
The Pattern: You nod when receiving feedback but don't really absorb it, rationalize why it doesn't apply, or get the same feedback repeatedly from different sources.
What You Tell Yourself: "They don't understand the full context" or "I need to find the right balance between everyone's input."
The Real Cost: You're missing critical information about your impact and effectiveness. Your team has likely learned that honest feedback isn't welcome, creating a dangerous echo chamber where problems grow invisible.
Remote Reality Check: When your team stops giving constructive feedback in virtual settings, it's often because they've learned you don't truly hear it. Silence in video calls isn't agreement.
The Pattern: You power through illness, check email during vacation, respond to messages at all hours, and see rest as optional rather than essential.
What You Tell Yourself: "This is what leadership requires" or "I need to be available for my team."
The Real Cost: Chronic exhaustion degrades your decision-making, creativity, and emotional regulation. You're modeling unsustainable behavior that burns out your team and normalizes an always-on culture.
Remote Reality Check: Home-based work makes boundaries even harder—your laptop is always there, time zones blur, and "just checking quickly" becomes a 2-hour work session during your weekend.
The Pattern: You assume people know what success looks like, communicate goals without context or resources, or adjust expectations without clearly communicating the changes.
What You Tell Yourself: "Smart people should be able to figure it out" or "I don't want to micromanage."
The Real Cost: Your team wastes energy guessing at targets, delivers work that misses the mark, and feels set up to fail when they're criticized for not meeting unclear standards.
Remote Reality Check: Virtual teams need even more clarity about expectations because they can't pick up on contextual cues or overhear clarifying conversations happening around them.
The Pattern: You avoid addressing performance issues, delay crucial conversations until frustration builds, or deliver feedback so diplomatically that the message gets lost.
What You Tell Yourself: "I don't want to damage our relationship" or "Maybe this will resolve itself."
The Real Cost: Problems fester and grow worse, high performers become frustrated watching accountability gaps, and your best people may leave because they don't see standards being maintained.
Here's what makes these blind spots particularly dangerous: they compound. When you can't delegate effectively, you become tactically overwhelmed. When you're tactically overwhelmed, you stop hearing feedback. When you stop hearing feedback, you can't set clear expectations. The cycle continues until something breaks—your health, your team, or your career trajectory.
The leaders who break through actively seek out their blind spots and address them systematically.
Understanding why blind spots persist helps you break free from their grip:
Many workplaces don't prioritize feedback. If you're in a culture that doesn't value honest input, you'll need to take matters into your own hands to get the information you need to grow.
You aren't asking for it. When you're in a leadership role, especially if you're delivering great results, team members, peers, and even bosses may hesitate to provide constructive criticism. Share your growth goals and explicitly ask for input.
People don't know how to give it. Training your team on a feedback framework like SBI (Situation-Behavior-Impact) can unlock more useful input. Click here for team feedback exercises.
Internal bias filters what you hear. You might be hearing the feedback but not truly receiving it. Constructive criticism can sting and activate defensiveness that protects your self-image, preventing real learning.
Feedback usually flows top-down, but input from your team can be the most valuable. Make it easier for team members to share honest thoughts by asking directly. Try saying, "I'm working on becoming better at delegation and empowering you to grow. Can you remember times when I handled this poorly?"
For teams new to giving upward feedback, consider using anonymous collection tools to reduce the psychological barrier.
Creating feedback partnerships with colleagues creates mutual benefit. You're likely dependent on each other for success, so building relationships where you help each other grow pays dividends. Start by understanding your own growth goals deeply, then communicate relevant areas to peers and ask for their partnership in noticing patterns.
Notice recurring themes in your team's behavior. Do people seek your approval at every project step? Are you spending less time with family and friends each week? Do you constantly feel "in the weeds" without strategic thinking time? These patterns often signal underlying blind spots worth exploring.
A skilled executive coach who prioritizes your growth and success provides an objective perspective that's hard to find elsewhere. They can help you process feedback, identify patterns you miss, and develop strategies for addressing what you discover.
Diagnostic tools can illuminate blind spots systematically. We've created a comprehensive assessment that evaluates your leadership effectiveness across the six key areas above. It's free, takes about 10 minutes to complete, and provides personalized insights based on your responses.
Take the Leadership Blind Spots Assessment →
Making your blind spots visible is crucial, but it's just the beginning. The real work lies in how you manage them:
Accept without judgment. There's nothing wrong with having blind spots—every leader has them. The fact that you're putting effort into identifying and addressing yours demonstrates insight and commitment to growth.
Choose a focus area. Leaders often discover multiple blind spots and growth opportunities. While it's tempting to tackle everything at once, a more effective approach is deep-diving on one or two areas until you have a clear strategy for improvement.
Create accountability systems. Without accountability, blind spots tend to slip back into the shadows unchanged. Share your discoveries with trusted colleagues and ask them to notice unhelpful behaviors. Working with an executive coach provides another powerful accountability structure.
Leadership blind spots aren't just personal limitations—they're organizational constraints. When you can't see your impact clearly, everyone around you pays the price through missed opportunities, team frustration, and suboptimal results.
The leaders who advance and create lasting impact aren't those without weaknesses—they're the ones who actively seek out their limitations and address them systematically.
Ready to discover what you can't see? Take our leadership blind spots assessment and get personalized insights into your six key leadership dimensions. It's the same tool I use with executive coaching clients, and it will give you clarity on where to focus your development efforts.
Take the Free Leadership Blind Spots Assessment →
Your team, your career, and your well-being are worth the 10 minutes it takes to see clearly.
Photo by Taras Chernus on Unsplash
