Ep#211 Fix Your Leadership Blind Spots
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[00:00:00] Hi everyone. My name's Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout Recovery Podcast where I teach professionals to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work.

[00:00:22] Hello my friends. Let's go back quickly and revisit the nineties. In my first leadership role, I led a team of 40 or so software engineers and, green as I was, I actually did experience a great deal of success and I enjoyed it too. But after a time my CEO and mentor retired, and I really didn't see myself as cut from the same cloth as the new leadership team.

[00:00:52] I couldn't buy into their values and really I wanted out. And the new CEO asked me to nominate a successor, and I rather hesitantly chose the longest standing most senior developer, despite my misgivings about his assertiveness and people skills. He was a typical backroom engineer. Unsuited for the limelight.

[00:01:15] I thought, at that time, choosing on seniority and technical knowhow was the right thing to do. Looking back, it was a very naive choice, and I later discovered that he didn't last very long before falling on his own sword. The person I should have chosen was duly elevated to the role and did very well.

[00:01:36] So that was a great leadership lesson for me and an expensive one for him.

[00:01:43] Every leader has blind spots and let's look at that today, because every human has blind spots, don't they? We each have beliefs and they form our enduring filter for decision making. Hard to see, nevermind change.

[00:02:00] Our beliefs shape our behavior, and this is why it's important, because it limits our options to solve problems to whatever we think we know and whoever we think we are.

[00:02:15] From birth onwards, each of us humans amass experiences that shape our personalities and build our map of the world.

[00:02:23] And then we use this map as our basis for interpreting what happens around us each day and knowing how to behave in response to it, in order basically to survive. But we have this bunch of biases that guide our decisions, and we use them as shortcuts, because making quick decisions is a survival mechanism. To act fast in emergencies, and to tax our brains less, to conserve energies. Because did you know that our brain uses 20% of our daily energy, with unconscious thought or memory retrieval using 5% less than conscious thought? So conscious thought's expensive, in energy terms.

[00:03:10] In evolutionary terms, what that means is, if food is scarce it does become an actual physical survival issue to use our brains a lot. Plus, of course, if we are looking at the fatigue angle, much fatigue is created by mental stress.

[00:03:28] It's worth note noting as well, that working from memory is unreliable, and I found this out when I had a road accident hit by a car. In hospital, the only way my brain could make sense of the collision was to see the car coming down the hill on my outside and turning across the front of my bike. I swore in court, probably a year or two later, that this is what had happened. Then I heard from the judge an eye witness account that the car was coming up the hill in the opposite direction.

[00:04:04] It took me about 60 seconds of stunned silence to process that one, to acclimatize to this new fact.

[00:04:13] Most memories (PTSD aside), are not static, but remolded over time. Humans edit each resurface memory based on their current knowledge of the world.

[00:04:27] So really that implies bias in our memories as well.

[00:04:30] Some of the other decision making biases that you might employ, let's have a look.

[00:04:36] Confirmation bias is an obvious one. Confirmation: this is who I am or this is not who I am, therefore, I agree or disagree. Because we are self-defined through our own beliefs.

[00:04:47] Sunk cost bias: I've invested in this already, so I'll invest again.

[00:04:52] Endowment effect: I must protect what I have. This is loss aversion. I can't let go of this thing because it's part of me.

[00:05:02] Actor-observer bias: Our own actions are externally motivated, whereas other people's actions are internally motivated and that's why we blame them for stuff.

[00:05:15] False consensus: Believing that everybody agrees with me.

[00:05:19] The halo effect: Attractive people, whatever that means for each of us, are good people.

[00:05:27] Self-serving bias: What I did is good. What went wrong is caused by others.

[00:05:33] So that's just a range of the biases we might have. There's plenty more, but really we have an ego investment in our beliefs and biases.

[00:05:44] For example, if you are a religious person or if you're a football fan, that might seem like simply part of who you are, and we always protect our self-image, as our very life.

[00:05:58] Some beliefs define who you are more strongly than others, and many of our foundational beliefs are actually inherited from our parents. It complicates matters that analytical discernment doesn't kick in for the human brain until around seven years old.

[00:06:17] So beliefs received before that, largely from our parents and early influences, are mostly ingested without question.

[00:06:27] That's why we can get stuck in patterns of belief that impair our leadership abilities, such as "I'm not good enough", that senseless driver of Imposter Syndrome.

[00:06:37] As Aristotle said: "Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man."

[00:06:45] So we've grown up with a whole bunch of ideas about the world, about who we are, who we should be, how things work, and we're still using all of these as leaders now, as adults.

[00:06:58] Some of those ideas and beliefs are relevant and useful and some not so much.

[00:07:04] We can study best practice in leadership and management till we're blue in the face, but we will not overcome our biases and beliefs unless we choose to consciously do that.

[00:07:15] We'll be unaware of most of them anyway. That's why we call them blind spots, isn't it?

[00:07:20] Or we might be painfully aware of them and hoping they don't show and nobody will notice and we won't be challenged on them.

[00:07:27] So how do you find your own blind spots? I think it's an interesting place to start and here are some of the ways you can sniff them out.

[00:07:35] The first one is, if you don't know how to solve a problem. You might feel inadequate or like an imposter, thinking it's something you should know. And it could be you should have knowledge about people or management or leadership or technical skills.

[00:07:52] If you don't know how to fix a problem and you are reactive and stressed about it, that might be one tip off that you've got a blocking belief that you might not see yet.

[00:08:02] Second one, you've got a people problem. Very common, this one, and you're either too riled up to solve it, or you don't know how to solve it, or you need to be right, or need approval.

[00:08:14] Excess stress, irritation, frustration, resentment, anger, or humiliation can point to this kind of blind spot. If you are triggered. If you can't face the problem or you feel helpless, disrespected, left out. Solving people problems obviously requires psychological safety and emotional intelligence. Maybe you don't have enough of either of those, who knows?

[00:08:42] We'll come back to that in a minute.

[00:08:44] Number three, procrastination. There's a task you're reluctant to start -avoidant of. Generally, a blind spot here will be something like self-doubt, fear of communicating, leading to anxiety, overwhelm, fear of failure, rejection, disapproval.

[00:09:02] And then perfectionism, a task you're reluctant to finish. Similar to procrastination, you fear being judged. Is the blind spot lack of faith in your ability to deliver good work on time?

[00:09:17] Number five, feeling outgunned by somebody more experienced or senior. You might fear making a fool of yourself, presenting poorly in a meeting, being called out, or even being asked questions you can't or don't want to answer.

[00:09:32] You aren't meeting your own self image or you fear making a mistake, being embarrassed or humiliated. That's another tip off.

[00:09:40] Number six, indecision. Chronic indecision, we're talking here, not just a momentary indecision. Lack of self trust might prevent your progress with decision making. So if that comes up for you, if that's a blind spot for you, maybe there's a place you need to back yourself a bit more.

[00:09:58] Situations where you might find these blind spots popping up, usually facing them, is facing up to some emotional squeeze that you're in, some discomfort. But facing any blind spot really requires unflinching clear sight, honesty, humility and fearless investigation.

[00:10:19] And by the way, the willingness to do any of that depends on whether you're ready to face the thoughts and the emotions arising from the situation that you are in.

[00:10:29] Which is where coaching I feel comes in. It's the great releaser of inaccurate and unhelpful beliefs.

[00:10:37] There is huge growth potential in finally seeing old beliefs, and consciously replacing them. That's rewiring your brain. That's all it is.

[00:10:48] Most of us need an empathic coach to guide that transformation, especially to overcome unconscious, deeply rooted habits. The seeds of transformation grow from kind understanding, not fear and punishment.

[00:11:04] You need to feel safe with your coach.

[00:11:08] It's my view that having at least a personal coach plus a 24x7 AI coach covers your bases the best.

[00:11:17] ' Cause, no matter how much we study, we can only ever amass the intelligence and knowledge of a single biased human.

[00:11:27] World population is currently at 8.3 billion of around 117 billion who ever lived.

[00:11:36] For contrast, AI LLMs are loosely derived from human writing over the last 5,000 or so years, representing 50 billion people.

[00:11:48] Whichever way you look at it, you can never beat AI on pure data aggregation and assimilation.

[00:11:55] However, you CAN beat it on the human element, and that's why personal coaching is so powerful. As you are seen, understood and expertly supported by an attuned coach to create new habits and new freedoms and new leadership potential is realized.

[00:12:16] And this is, I think, better with AI coaching as an always-on adjunct, for those immediate problem solving.

[00:12:25] Expertly trained AI answers your personal and leadership dilemmas from an almost infinite data set of best practice, which you can then apply to your own problems.

[00:12:36] AI has deep, accurate interpretation of human psychology and can easily recognize patterns, however they might be expressed by you, and then supply congruent, practical solutions for you to try out -because it understands your capacities to do that from the way you've expressed yourself in your prompts.

[00:13:00] So the possibility exists here to radically transform your response to any situation you're stuck in. You can use AI to modify your unhelpful, habitual responses, and it can be powerfully freeing, allowing you to also release any negative thoughts and feelings you've harbored about a tricky situation.

[00:13:21] AI can be amazing to debug your daily work challenges and help you rise above your internal and external conflict.

[00:13:30] It can also apply emotional intelligence principles to sweeten communication and produce the effect you are aiming for. So, of course, by example, rewriting your sales presentation, but also by suggesting an approach to something like a deadlock team disagreement where you feel the emotions are running high and you're not getting leverage.

[00:13:54] Personally, I've trained my own Dex AI coach to apply the same methods I use in personal coaching to support leadership growth and flourishing. I've had a lot of testers using Dex AI to great effect, to quickly resolve challenges, and I do strongly advocate for Dex AI coach to help you in your day-to-day struggles.

[00:14:16] You can't change a situation or the players, but you can often find some wiggle room to create a better outcome for you anyway. AI can see the entire world, beyond your personal biases, and make suggestions.

[00:14:32] Where AI sometimes falls short, I think, is helping you produce a broad scale transformation, a wholesale transformation in who you are being.

[00:14:43] This is the domain of personal coaching where deep listening, advocacy and habit change support can free up this big leap forward that you're looking for. The two together is what I use and what I recommend for my clients and to you, my listener. Dex AI for quick fixes, personal coaching for the deeper long game of human transformation.

[00:15:08] So I've got together two or three prompts here just to help you unearth some of your biases, some of your blind spots, and to use these prompts, go to Dex AI at dexrandall.com.

[00:15:23] Here's the first one. Outline whatever your current challenge is to the AI and ask this question: "What am I not seeing in this situation?"

[00:15:33] Dex AI might ask you some questions to clarify and will then offer feedback.

[00:15:37] Number two, ask it straight out: "How can I identify my team leadership blind spots?"

[00:15:45] Number three, describe an undesirable behavior, for example, that you're seeing in a team member. Set aside how you feel for now and ask: "What's an effective next step to take with this person?"

[00:15:58] Number four, outline a disagreement you're having at a senior level about work priorities. For example: "A director's pulled rank and prioritized his project over mine with the CEO. The CEO has told me to fall into line." So you might ask Dex AI: "How can I resolve this without forfeiting my own deadlines?"

[00:16:21] Those types of questions can really dig out some very helpful, proactive responses you can make, to move a situation forward without putting anybody's noses out of joint any further, including yours!

[00:16:35] So you get the idea. Surfacing your blind spots and accepting new ideas puts a lot more power in your hands to resolve difficult situations.

[00:16:45] By sidestepping any emotional reactivity, in you and in other people, and applying Emotional Intelligence to aim directly for what is most likely to work and get you the outcome that you want.

[00:17:01] It uplifts your leadership style, and your status, reduces stress on you, and it removes obstructions at work.

[00:17:08] If you would like to transform your leadership permanently, come and talk to me about your goals and aspirations at go.dexrandall.com/leadership, the link's in the show notes.

[00:17:20] Thank you very much for listening today. Please go and visit Dex AI and ask it a few of your curly questions, and please also share this episode with anyone else who needs to hear it.

[00:17:32] Catch you again next week.