The Leadership Blind Spot: What the Data Reveals
3-minute read
Written by Justin Deonarine, I/O Psychologist
When I ask people to describe the best leaders they’ve worked with, some common skills bubble to the surface: Being empathetic, supporting their team, remaining flexible, and communicating clearly. In contrast, when describing the worst leaders people share stories about micromanaging, poor communication, disorganization, and the inability to establish trusting relationships.
Our experiences with good and poor leadership live with us in profound ways. These experiences are also backed up by our research data from the Psychometrics 360 assessment.
Leaders’ Strengths and Challenges
Data from the Psychometrics 360 reveals an interesting pattern:
- Areas where leaders perform the strongest are associated with day-to-day operations, including verbal and written communication, maintaining high standards, and showing responsibility and integrity.
- However, their greatest challenges are associated with strategic behaviours, including coaching, innovating, remaining flexible, and mobilizing their team around a clear purpose.
This operational-focused approach creates a leadership blind spot, where the broader perspective comes second to the current issues at hand.
Why This Happens
One possibility is that leaders are living up to their expectations. Using the Importance ratings from the Psychometrics 360, we can see what is most important to leaders, as well as what is important to those above them (aka their Supervisors).
Supervisors indicate that they value operational competencies over strategy, including emphasizing the need for planning work activities, influencing others, and maintaining high quality standards. Leaders are picking up on these priorities and spend a great amount of effort to display these competencies.
In a similar manner, the least important competencies to Supervisors fall in the strategic realm, and leaders are adapting their priorities accordingly. Some of the least important competencies to leaders and those above them include coaching others, empowering employees, achieving results efficiently, and showing organizational awareness.
What Should Leaders Focus On?
Leaders often face conflicting expectations: What those above them need, what those below them need, what those around them need, and what others (including clients) need.
| Supervisors are seeking a leader who: | Direct Reports are seeking a leader who: |
| Communicate clearly with everyone around them. Ensures that high standards are maintained. Take responsibility for their deliverables. | Considers the long-term strategy, and the broader implications of decisions. Coaches their team to build new leaders. Embraces change and innovation. Remains flexible. |
Keeping the Balance
Leadership isn’t just about running the day-to-day operations effectively. It’s also about preparing teams and organizations for tomorrow. The most effective leaders understand the need to balance both of these elements. They maintain strong operational foundations while also being aware of the bigger picture, coaching and empowering their teams, and guiding productive change. These are the leaders who are able to shape the future of their organization.
Develop More Effective Leaders
Understanding where strengths and gaps exist is the first step toward stronger leadership. The Psychometrics 360 assessment helps uncover blind spots and develop the competencies that matter most.
