Career Blind Spots: How to Find the Habits Holding You Back

A blind spot is something about how you work that other people see clearly and you don’t. It might be how you come across in meetings, a habit that frustrates your team, or a belief about how careers work that quietly stalls yours. You can’t fix what you can’t see, which is why blind spots tend to stick around for years.

Back in 2011, Career Hub ran a Q&A with career author Alexandra Levit about her book Blind Spots, which took apart ten career myths that sound right but hold people back. One example: the belief that when things go wrong, the problem is the organization and not you. The idea behind the book holds up well. The hardest career problems to solve are the ones you don’t know you have.

Most of us overrate our self-awareness

Organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich has studied self-awareness for years. In a 2017 interview with Knowledge at Wharton, she summed up her research this way: about 95 percent of people think they’re self-aware, but the real number is closer to 10 to 15 percent.

That gap is the blind spot problem in one statistic. Most people are confident they know how they come across. Most are partly wrong.

The upside is that blind spots respond well to one simple habit: asking. The leadership consultancy Zenger Folkman looked at ratings for 51,896 executives. Leaders in the bottom 10 percent for asking for feedback were rated at the 15th percentile in overall leadership effectiveness. Leaders in the top 10 percent for asking were rated at the 86th percentile.

Common blind spots at work

Everyone’s are different, but a few show up again and again.

Talking more than you listen. You think you’re contributing. Others notice that meetings run long when you’re in them, or that quieter colleagues stop speaking up.

Being right instead of being effective. You win the argument and lose the support. Being correct about a decision doesn’t help much if the people who have to carry it out feel steamrolled.

Hoarding work. You see yourself as reliable and hands-on. Your manager sees someone who doesn’t delegate, which makes you hard to promote.

Underselling your results. You assume good work speaks for itself. It usually doesn’t, and the people making decisions about raises and promotions may not know what you did.

Blaming the system. Sometimes the organization really is the problem. But if you’ve had the same frustration at three different jobs, the common factor is worth a look.

Treating your current skills as permanent. What got you here was valuable. Whether it’s still enough is a separate question, and one people tend to answer too generously. Our post on why lifelong learning matters covers this.

How to find yours

Ask a better question. “Do you have any feedback for me?” almost always gets “No, you’re doing great.” Ask something specific and easy to answer honestly: “What’s one thing I could do differently in meetings?” or “What would make me easier to work with?”

Ask people with nothing to lose. Former colleagues, a mentor outside your company, or a peer you trust will often be more candid than your current boss or direct reports.

Look for patterns. One comment is an opinion. The same comment from three people over five years is information. Go back through old performance reviews and look for themes you dismissed at the time.

Compare your view with theirs. If your company offers 360-degree feedback, use it. Rate yourself first, then compare. The places where your score is much higher than everyone else’s are the ones to look at.

Notice reactions. When people go quiet, push back harder than expected, or stop bringing you problems, something is happening that you may not see. Ask about it.

What to do with what you learn

Hearing about a blind spot is uncomfortable, and the natural reaction is to explain. Don’t. Say thank you, ask one follow-up question, and think about it later. People who get defensive stop getting honest feedback, and then the blind spot gets bigger.

Pick one thing to work on at a time. Tell the people around you what you’re trying to change, and ask them to point it out when they see it. It speeds up the change, and it shows them you took their input seriously.

Then check back in a few months. Ask the same people whether they’ve noticed a difference.

Blind spots in your job search

Blind spots don’t just affect the job you have. They shape how you look for the next one.

If you’re getting interviews but not offers, something in how you come across may be getting in the way: answers that run too long, too little enthusiasm, or not enough evidence for your claims. Ask a friend to run a mock interview and give you blunt feedback, or record yourself answering common questions. Our guide to acing your next interview covers what interviewers look for. And if the rejections are piling up, see our post on turning job rejections into opportunities. Rejection is often the best source of honest feedback you’ll get.

Soft skills are where most workplace blind spots live: communication, listening, how you handle disagreement. Our post on the power of soft skills covers how to build them.

Sources: Tasha Eurich, interview with Knowledge at Wharton, June 2017; Zenger Folkman, “A Leadership Tip That Just Works: Ask for Feedback” (study of 51,896 executives); Alexandra Levit, Blind Spots: The 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success (2011).