“Honest feedback is hard to take, especially from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.”

—Franklin P. Jones

I once found myself needing to find new employment. The situation that I was leaving had been complex, to say the least, and I worried that perceptions of failure would dog me as I sought new opportunities.

As part of the interview process, I met with an organization’s chief executive, who would have been my direct supervisor. After an in-person interview, he took the time to try to research my situation to determine whether I would be an asset to him. Soon after our meeting, he called me to say that he had spoken with people familiar with my performance and was prepared to hire me now that he better understood my “blind spots.”

As you could well imagine, this half-baked endorsement did not do much to increase my desire to work for him. On a positive note, the conversation did alert me to an important aspect of leadership that leaders often fail to perceive—namely, their blind spots.

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