The views expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their very own.
When attempting to scale a business, it’s easy to overlook the less obvious things that may very well be holding you back. As someone who has all the time been deeply committed to driving my business forward, I’ve seen that even well-intentioned leadership can have blind spots—areas where your approach, despite your best efforts, can hinder success.
These aren’t just minor oversights. When you’re too focused on the greater picture, sometimes critical areas are left unresolved and can get in the way of real growth.
I would really like to focus on three leadership weaknesses which may be limiting you.
1. Product Blind Spot
I’ve all the time been a product-focused CEO. My personality tends to be very optimistic and I’m never satisfied with a product that’s “good enough.” I’m all the time attempting to make it higher. When people tell me something can’t be done, I go into overdrive to seek out a approach to prove them fallacious. I also recurrently gather feedback from our customers on what improvements they’d prefer to see in our products. Over time, this led to an ambitious list of product improvements that didn’t have a clear roadmap. While this didn’t negatively impact revenue growth, it did impact performance and adoption because we were rolling out so many recent products at once, sometimes before they were even fully tested.
Our Chief Technology Officer was consistently shifting priorities and goals to accommodate my growing list of product ideas. One of my best decisions was to advertise one of our VPs to Chief Product Officer. When he stepped in, we were capable of refine our product development processes and ultimately improve our speed to market. Our product roadmap is higher prioritized and product releases are more evenly distributed. This strategy allowed more time to properly train our team before we launched them to our customers. As a result, our product launches were more successful and had higher adoption rates.
2. The blind spot of feedback and ignorance
Every successful company is fueled by a strong, collaborative team. Our company lives by our core values—TEAMS, which stands for Teamwork, Empower, Accountability, Mutual Respect, and Serves. We are a very team-oriented company and I value the feedback and advice of my team. As CEO, it is simply inconceivable and unsustainable for me to be involved in every detail of the organization. So I have needed to learn to trust my team to offer me with thoughtful feedback and achievable solutions. These insights should all the time be objective and aligned with our long-term goals. When I see a decision or initiative heading in a direction I might not necessarily have chosen, it becomes my job to step in and lead the team back on course, even if it is unpopular.
It is the responsibility of every CEO to shape decisions, not necessarily make every decision. One of our company’s founding principles is “empowerment,” and I consider it is essential that our leaders have the authority and confidence to make key decisions. I look for leaders who fully understand the company’s vision and who might be trusted to make decisions that I can support.
3. The blind spot of resistance to vary
Change might be scary, and people like us have a natural tendency to withstand it—especially when all the things appears to be going on as usual. I’ve found that waiting too long to make significant changes might be just as damaging as changing too often.
Businesses are like living, respiratory organisms; decisions or strategies that worked in the past may not work as the company grows and evolves. That’s why leaders should welcome change, not draw back from it. A recent example in our own business is our support model. We had the same support model for years, and it worked very well for a very long time. Over the past two years, we’ve launched several recent products and almost doubled our customer base, so we realized we would have liked a different structure to raised serve our customers.
This change required a fairly significant reorganization that was met with resistance. Not only did we implement a recent support structure, but we also opened a recent support center, which got here at a high cost. The delay didn’t necessarily slow our growth, but implementing the change led to noticeable improvements in productivity, retention, and overall customer satisfaction.
The blind spot here is the fear of disrupting the establishment. Change will all the time be greeted with raised eyebrows and inconsistency, at least in the initial phases of implementation. Change, whether good or bad, is resisted with equal intensity. However, as leaders, we should be prepared to anticipate the need for change, recognize the indicators, and act before the situation forces us to do so. It’s a difficult balance—change too often and you disrupt the team; wait too long and you miss opportunities.
Stay near your customers
The final blind spot value mentioning is when leaders or business owners turn into too distant from their customers. Sometimes we are likely to have multiple layers of individuals between us and the end customer. However, it’s necessary to do not forget that staying deeply connected to your customers is key. At our company, we have an executive sponsor program where each executive is assigned to a group of shoppers to offer an extra layer of support that elevates the customer experience.
While executive sponsors are not responsible for day-to-day account management, maintaining these client relationships provides invaluable insights which may otherwise be lost. Additionally, clients feel more valued when they know that the best leaders in our organization are actively engaged and truly care about their business.
Overcoming blind spots
Leadership blind spots are often missed, but they’ll significantly impact a company’s progress. Business owners and leaders must have the ability to instantly spot and fix these blind spots, whether it’s balancing product innovation with a clear execution plan, acknowledging team feedback, embracing change, or staying connected to consumers.
Such thoughtfulness and proactivity can open up recent opportunities for your organization, team development and growth, ultimately resulting in even greater success.