The Self-Knowledge Route To Better Leadership

Forbes

5 days ago

It may be of little import to readers in the U.S., but tomorrow eager sports fans in the U.K. and Ireland will be focused on their televisions as the British and Irish Lions rugby union team aim to achieve a 3-0 series win over their Australian counterparts. Rugby can be a brutal game, but its proponents tend to get all misty-eyed over how they measure up against their forerunners. In this context, being the captain is a lot more than a ceremonial role. So it was interesting to read the comments made by Maro Itoje, the current Lions captain, ahead of this weekend's crucial match.'I want to use the talents of the group. It's never been about me, about me having the final word or sticking my chest out as captain. It's about us getting to where we need to be,' he said in explanation of his decision to ask a fellow player to deliver the traditional motivational speech ahead of the kick-off. This is being interpreted as a sign that Itoje, a player who is known for being somewhat cerebral, is conscious of what he is as a captain and what he isn't.
Such self-awareness is rather rare among leaders of all sorts, whether they be in the political, business or sporting worlds. Which is presumably why Itoje's remarks resonated. But, as he intimated, it is possible to become better at it — and so become a more effective leader.
One approach to improvement is set out in a fascinating new book by Martin Dubin, a clinical psychologist who has worked as a coach to executives and also led a business. In Blindspotting, he starts out from the premise that a lot of the problems that afflict leaders of organisations stem from their failure to appreciate how they are behaving affects those around them. In other words, what we can see as super strengths can actually have such a negative impact on those around us that they lose all positive characteristics.
In a recent interview, he explained that when a strength becomes a weakness it leads to a blindspot. An organized, decisive leader can, for example, become too organized, too decisive, 'and the individual can be the last person to realise it.' The way to deal with this is not, he says, to attempt to transform people. 'It's about tweaks in changing how we show up.'
While most people have a general idea about blindspots — literally, areas we can't see, or, more figuratively, places we have gaps that we may not even realize. But Dubin defines them quite specifically. 'They are what we don't know about ourselves that hold us back as leaders and that prevent us from achieving our highest success. They are the particulars of who we are—our behaviors, our emotions, our intellect, our inborn traits, our core motives, and the identities we embody— that we are unable to see, and thus unable to take action to address,' he writes.
Fortunately, it is possible — through the tweaks he refers to — to compensate for them, but becoming aware of what they are and how they can have a detrimental effect can be more challenging. At the heart of Rubin's approach is what he calls 'an awareness model' that 'can help us each to understand our personality and provide a pathway for using that understanding to create change.'
Pointing out that most analysis of leadership focuses on how leaders influence organizations, he stresses that — in keeping with his training — he concentrates more on how the inner make-up of leaders influences their behaviour. The focus on blindspots stems from the fact that in order to understand who we are we must see what we have been missing.
Dubin duly provides — with the assistance of stories from his time as an executive coach and his own experience — a method for identifying these issues. But the over-riding message is that leaders who know themselves are more likely to understand and empathise with those with whom they work. And by having a better understanding of strengths and weaknesses they should be able to build more effective teams. As he said in the interview, 'With the world so complex, the hero leader is a thing of the past.' No doubt Maro Itoje would agree.