Ubud, 13 September 2017 — Your success will not be derailed by the problems you see. What you need is feedback from other people on the behaviors for which you are blind. 

A trap to avoid

As a leader, one of the worst traps you can fall into is believing that you know yourself well enough to excel in your job. Executives and senior professionals are especially prone to this trap, even after they have gained an MBA and have attended leadership training programs.

The more you have learned about leadership and how to be successful as a leader, the more likely it becomes that you have forgotten to work on your blind spots. Of course, this trap also lures emerging leaders who have recently started out on their journey. 

What about leadership blind spots? What are they? Do they have to do with a lack of knowledge? 

For sure, it is important to realize that there are things that you don't know that you don't know yet. That realization opens up a space for additional learning. The most important part of effective leadership, however, is not how much you know. It is how you behave. 

It is in being aware of your behaviors that you are most likely to have significant blind spots, as many studies have pointed out. The people around you probably know much more about your behaviors than you do. They seem them every day, so it It is easy for them to observe your behaviors—much easier than it is for you to observe them yourself. 

Some of your leadership behaviors will attract people to work with you, while other behaviors tend to drive people away from you. If the latter behaviors persist, they can derail your career. You probably know several examples where this happened to a leader who otherwise had great potential for succeeding.  

Taking the LMAP 360 assessment

So how can you borrow the eyes of people around you and get their feedback on your behaviors as a leader? Fortunately, a tool exists to help you do just that, and in an anonymous way so that you are most likely to get their honest feedback.

I am referring to the LMAP 360 – Leadership Multi-rater Assessment of Personality. This detailed assessment uses 134 questions to measure 13 unique, leadership-relevant personality traits in you, including behaviors that support your leadership, and behaviors that can derail your career.

Ron Warren, the creator of LMAP 360, explains that the assessment gives you "compelling feedback that stimulates your insight and action like no other leadership assessment tool."

There are many 360-degree assessments in the market today to give you feedback from your bosses, your peers, and your reports. Almost all 360s, however, are focused on your competencies rather than on your actual leadership behaviors.

Many executives have already gone through one or more 360s based on competencies, and they tend to forget their results quickly. Not so with the LMAP 360, explains Ron Warren. "Even the most hardened executive sits up and pays attention when they read their LMAP 360 Report." 

Behaviors matter more than competencies

This is because personality characteristics that show up as leadership behaviors will determine leadership success much better than the specific competencies for a job to be done. "People seldom get straight-talking, actionable feedback about how they are versus what they do at work," says Warren, before continuing to explain that:

"LMAP 360 provides feedback on the personality and behavioral styles of a leader – what you are like as a person (how you show up) – compared to competency 360s that provide feedback on distinct skills and competencies.

The LMAP 360 model is grounded in research that shows strong links between personality styles and job performance. This research is confirmed by everyday experience that shows that an individual’s behavioral style has a huge impact on their ability to lead, to build a team, to constructively resolve conflicts, and motivate other team members." 

Becoming an effective leader for sustainability will require that you master the art of influencing people around you. This is both a challenge and an opportunity, and you will want to make sure that you don't do this work with a blindfold on.

It is essential that you know if your behaviors are supporting people around you to reach your goals together, or if they detract others from that goal, or even derail your chances for success in your career.

The leaders I work with are unanimous in appreciating the valuable lessons they have learned by taking a 360 that gives feedback on how they show up in their leadership behaviors. The results give them a precise focus on where they need to improve the most, together with practical suggestions on where to start.

Going through the process

Receiving the feedback in your LMAP 360 Report from people around you is not necessarily an easy thing to do. It requires your courage, openness, and an investment of time and money in yourself and your leadership.

Apart from acknowledging you for behaviors that are seen to support your leadership in an effective or even powerful way, there will be suggestions how you can improve. That is where you can get the highest return on your investment.

Importantly, there may be leadership behaviors where your self-assessment varies significantly from the assessment given by others around you. Those differences are a good thing as they are going to cure you of your blindness, and will offer you the greatest benefits you can get from the LMAP 360.

Also, if you have chosen reviewers who know you well, you will certainly get practical recommendations about where and how you can work on your behaviors to improve your leadership. 

Furthermore, private one-to-one coaching is an important part of the LMAP 360 process. You will be guided by your coach how to interpret your report, how to extract the most important lessons, and how to start working on building stronger leadership behaviors than before, supported by coaching as needed. For many leaders, this is a life-changing experience.

There are two 360s to choose from. Here is how:

LMAP 360 is for you when you are an executive, a senior business manager, or a leader who wants to use the best and most detailed feedback tool available to help you become a more effective executive leader. You will get a comprehensive and detailed report on your behaviors (the report is usually between 75 and 95 pages long), and explore with your coach in a private, one-to-one coaching session how to interpret your assessment results and start building more effective leadership behaviors. Duration: approximately 4 weeks.

MMAP 360 is for you when you are a leader who wants to use a thorough feedback tool to become a more effective leader. You will get a comprehensive report on your behaviors (about 35 pages long), and explore with your coach in a private one-to-one coaching session how to interpret your assessment results and start building more effective leadership behaviors. Duration: approximately 4 weeks.

Congratulations for choosing 360 clarity over staying blind to the behaviors that can derail your career and jeopardize the effectiveness and impact of your leadership. It is a no brainer, really, and I am looking forward to hearing from you.