Leadership Blindspots summary

Introduction

Leadership Blindspots by Robert Bruce Shaw. Leadership Blindspots shows how executives identify and conquer unseen vulnerabilities that jeopardize success. Even the most brilliant leaders have dangerous gaps in their awareness. We often recognize our obvious flaws and try to manage them.

Yet known weaknesses rarely cause major career or business disasters. Instead, fatal damage comes from unrecognized flaws known as Blindspots. Robert Bruce Shaw reveals how Blindspots destroy even high performing companies. Leaders misread market shifts, ignore team warnings or misjudge their own capabilities.

Fortunately, these hidden risks can be uncovered before crisis strikes. This summary provides actionable tools to detect, evaluate and eliminate Blindspots.

understanding blind spots

understanding Blindspots. Blindspots are unrecognized weaknesses or threats that can undermine your success. It is said that pride comes before a fall. When you are most confident, you are also at greatest risk of defeat or setback.

Why is this the case? Even when we feel most powerful, there are sure to be hidden Blindspots. Indeed, even the most experienced leaders have Blindspots. These can cause them huge problems if they are not careful.

Even a great visionary like Steve Jobs suffered from Blindspots. This was despite his reputation for success. Although effective, Jobs' leadership style angered many colleagues. For example, he would refuse to see information that did not support his views.

He would simply ignore those who disagreed with him. Worse still, Jobs had no awareness that people harbored negative feelings about him. His belief in his own greatness shrouded his perception. This Blindspot eventually had massive consequences.

This happened when he quarreled with Apple CEO John Sculley. Jobs demanded that the board remove his rival. Yet, faced with the ultimatum of keeping either Jobs or Sculley, the board warned that Jobs would be packing his bags. Leadership Blindspots can have catastrophic consequences.

The more power a leader has, the greater the consequences of her Blindspot. Take Ron Johnson for example. He did wonders as a retail leader at Target and Apple. He was then snatched up by JCPenney as their new CEO.

JCPenney hoped he would transform the company. They gave him plenty of power to do so. This was a huge mistake. In his arrogance, he made sweeping changes, including deep price cuts.

His confidence hit his lack of knowledge about the company's values and image. This ultimately resulted in a loss of $1 billion in the first year. JCPenney lost its traditional customers. Clearly, Blindspots can be severely damaging for your company and career.

In the following chapters, we will examine how you can identify your own Blindspots.