Leadership Blind Spots

In the above scene from the 1985 classic “Back to the Future,” Biff is blaming George McFly for not alerting him to the “blind spots” in the rearview mirror. It’s a completely ridiculous concept — but the reality is that we all have “blind spots” in our lives when making decisions and evaluating those we lead.

Traditionally, these emerge when we look for an easy solution to why failure occurs. We blame the officials, the weather, the time of game, bad luck and any other available element. We have double standards for certain people in our organization as those we handpick are frequently valued differently than those we inherit. We don’t evaluate our friends or those who agree with us with the same intensity.

This bias through blind spots is also common amongst physicians.

“When physicians receive gifts from pharmaceutical companies, they may claim that the gifts do not affect their decisions about what medicine to prescribe because they have no memory of the gifts biasing their prescriptions,” said Erin McCormick, an author and Ph.D. student in behavioral decision research at CMU’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “However, if you ask them whether a gift might unconsciously bias the decisions of other physicians, most will agree that other physicians are unconsciously biased by the gifts, while continuing to believe that their own decisions are not.”

As much as we may deny that we have blind spots, they exist in all of us.

So, how do we navigate them?

We have to practice new habits, which help us become aware of them.

1. Expand your view- Don’t get comfortable. Be aware of past behaviors and disappointments and strive to pursue a different path.

2. Become a contrarian- Challenge and ask questions of everything you read. Don’t simply assume everything is correct.

3. Spend an hour a day on something that will make you grow mentally- We need to work the mind as much as the body.

4.. Create accountability markers- Measure yourself every day — and keep a journal on everything you do, from your wardrobe to your path to work. Strive to become different and measure your progress.

It takes hard work to eliminate the shortcomings in our own decision-making processes. But when we’re aware of what we do not know and actually seek to change, we take the crucial first step in removing these from our leadership lives.