Overcoming Blindspots

Recently, I have been listening to the Maxwell leadership podcast on Spotify during my daily workout sessions. One of the topics that they spoke about in the podcast caught my attention, and it was about blindspots. After listening to what they had to share on the topic, I couldn’t agree more that we should strive to learn about our own blindspots. In this article, I’ll be sharing my own experience with blindspots and the methods I use to identify them in my journey towards becoming a better leader.

What are Blindspots?

The very term “blindspot” suggests that we don’t know about it. It could even be a weakness that may be on full display to everyone else but ourselves, hence the term blindspot.

Our knowledge is a collection of all the experiences that we’ve picked up as we lived our lives. Most of the decisions that we make are based on what we’ve seen and experienced in the past. The success that we have today is due to the decision we made because of our experience. However, unbeknown to us, it could also be the very thing holding us back from achieving an even higher level of success. In short, it is a behaviour, a line of thought or even a reaction that we are rely upon in our daily interaction or decision making process that we think is beneficial, but in reality isn’t.

I believe that none of us are perfect, that all of us have at least one weakness in any form or way. I’m also glad of this fact, because it makes life worth living. If we’re already perfect in every way, then there wouldn’t be a point in life, would there? Oh, 1 more interesting thing I heard from the Maxwell Leadership podcast. If you think that you don’t have any blindspots, well that in itself is a blindspot.

Identifying Our Blindspots

Identifying our own blindspots can be very tricky because it requires us to know something that we’ve not known before, and to see things in a different paradigm. Based on my experience, I have implemented a couple of ways to identify blindspots, which I’ll be sharing with you in this article.

Method 1: Using the 3 R's

Regardless if you are an introvert or an extrovert, this method is suitable for you. The 3 R’s to identifying your blindspots are resolution, read and reflect. 

When I first started, I had a resolve to become a better version of myself. I pictured an ideal version of myself in my head, then thought to myself what I can do to be like that. As my idealised self was a successful leader, I decided I had to learn more about leadership.

So, the second thing I did was to start reading up on leadership. I began devouring book after book on leadership, trying to understand what it truly means to be a good leader. 

As I read, I also took the time to reflect back on my past actions to compare against the lessons learnt from the book. Slowly, I began discovering that some of my actions or behaviours were incorrect, overtime I noted them down so that I can work on them little by little.

As long as you are proactively seeking to improve yourself, constantly expanding your knowledge, and reflecting back on your own actions, you’ll eventually be able to find blindspots and overcome them. However, this method may be time consuming, and sometimes we are so blinded that we just can’t see certain areas where we are in need of improvement. In that case, let’s look at method 2.

Method 2: Get Feedback From Others

The second method is to get feedback from others. This is the most effective method in identifying blindspots. Ask and it shall be given. You can reach out to your family, friends, colleagues, mentors, even acquaintances to ask about your blindspot, it can be as simple as “What do you think are the areas where I should focus on if I want to improve myself?”

In my workplace, we recently implemented a short session where we get together to provide feedback to one another. The session is treated as a safe place for anyone to voice out your opinion, but it has to be in a constructive manner, to encourage one another to continuously improve.

Now, if you can’t ask your friends and family, and your workplace is not suitable for you to exchange thoughts for improvements as well. Then I would recommend you try Toastmasters. Every Toastmasters meeting contains an evaluation session where senior members will provide their feedback on how you can improve yourself. 

Personally, I have had quite a few blindspots called out while attending Toastmasters meetings. One of the first things you’ll find out is probably the number of speech crutches you make when doing speeches. When I first attended a Toastmasters meeting, I had over 50 speech crutches in the meeting. I never knew such a thing even existed. Over time, as I became aware of it, the number of crutches began to reduce.

Summary

Once you have identified your blindspots, then all you have to do is work on them and be a better you. In this article, we spoke about what are blindspots and the methods in which we can use to identify them. I hope that this article is helpful to you, and I wish you all the best in your future endeavours!