Page 26 - Fearless Leadership

What It Means to Be a Fearless Leader 13

Lesson Learned. Transformation starts with the leaders; if the lead-
ers focus on changing others, they will fail. The fastest way to produce
broad-based change is for leaders to alter their behavior, demonstrate
accountability, and model what they expect from others.

When you cannot see a problem or do not believe there is a problem,
nothing can be addressed. You will continue to do what you have always
done, and when your behavior is unproductive, others will compensate
by working around or avoiding you.
When leaders are unwilling to acknowledge and address their blind
spots, the new dog solution of changing others becomes the easiest and
most obvious thing to do. Here is the problem with this approach: people
become resigned when leaders are unwilling to take accountability for
their blind spots. When the leaders are rigid and inflexible, people adopt
the belief that nothing can change.
Because team members have no way to communicate or address the
leaders’ blind spots in a safe environment, they do not speak up. The result:
people shrink the game, reduce their focus to their area of responsibility,
and performance suffers. They let leaders fend for themselves, and they
emotionally withdraw from the team.
Before bringing in new dogs, leaders should stop and address the blind
spots that keep their teams from performing at their optimal levels. If
leaders ignore that step, even their most highly effective teams with tal-
ented people can become resigned, resulting in unproductive, automatic
behavior.
One of the powerful tools you will learn in the chapters that follow is
to identify how your behavior impacts your coworkers and team. By rec-
ognizing and overcoming your blind spots, you will learn how to increase
your ability to unite and inspire others. When teams authentically con-
front their blind spots—individually and collectively—they openly discuss
and resolve difficult issues, and resignation disappears. A cohesive, enthu-
siastic, and committed team emerges.

Change how people behave and you change what the organiza-
tion can achieve.