Leadership Blind Spots

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Details: Parent Category: Business Tips; Category: Marketing; Published: 15 April 2013

Driving in the "blind spot" is dangerous both personally and business wise.

After working with entrepreneurs for many years now, one major failing keeps surfacing - too many have a fatal marketing "blind spot".

These entrepreneurs thoroughly understand their product and/or technology. They may well be on their way to mastering the engineering and operational issues involved in delivering their product or service. Yet they persist - often until it is too late - in believing that the marketing issues are relatively simple - because everyone will surely love their new product or service as much as they do.

Only after that product or service is "ready" or worse, after early sales attempts have bombed - will someone like me get a call. Of course, at that point most of the money's gone. Sometimes huge amounts! There's neither time nor money to do a competent marketing plan, let alone execute it - and the venture fails - needlessly.

In my experience, this marketing "blind spot" is the single most common cause of start-up failures - in fact, I'm starting to believe, more common than all others combined.

The most important piece of advice that I can give entrepreneurs is to get a marketing "reality check" early on - like at the beginning, before you even know that your product or service will do what you're hoping it will do.

Hire an independent (read, objective) professional to take a look at your intended market.

Is it really there? Can it be penetrated (or developed) and what's likely to be required to do so? This is just a "look". It doesn't have to be an expensive, complicated project. In fact, at this point, it shouldn't be. But it's absolutely certain that it will be much less "expensive" than if it's done downstream.

Leaders at all levels are reluctant to openly acknowledge their struggles for fear of appearing weak, indecisive or even incompetent. In "Leadership and the Art of Struggle: How Great Leaders Grow through Challenge and Adversity" author Steven Snyder argues that struggle is an innate part of leadership that should be embraced as an opportunity for breakthrough success rather than feared as a business-killer.

"Fulfilling your potential as a leader requires that you think differently about leadership," Snyder writes. "You must recast your struggles as positive learning experiences and view them as necessary steps in your leadership development." Developing a solid understanding of the root of struggle - change, tensions, and/or being out of balance - is the first step to mastering the art of struggle.

For example, blind spots are the product of an overactive automatic mind and an underactive reflective mind. A blind spot is anything that can hinder or undermine your performance that you are either unaware of or have chosen to overlook.

A blind spot is most likely to come into play when leaders move to a new role or a new company. They arrive so eager to show off what they know that they don't pay close enough attention to their new circumstances. The risk is that they continue on autopilot without noticing the need for radical change. Their automatic mind continues to tell them that all is well, and their reflective mind is too lazy to blow the whistle. Is it any wonder why 40% of new leaders fail?

A blind spot doesn't necessarily mean that you are unaware of a problem; blind spots can occur even if you have some level of awareness but fail to take appropriate action. By definition, you are blind to your blind spots. That's why it's so important to proactively seek to discover them. It can be helpful to work with a business or executive coach to help hear what you are not hearing and see what you have chosen not to see.

Reference: Steven Snyder: Leadership and the Art of Struggle: How Great Leaders Grow Through Challenge and Adversity and John Agno, Coach2Coach e-newsletter, March 29, 2013

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