The Leader's Blind Spot

The short 10-second takeaway:
Leaders rarely fail because of one big misstep. They plateau because of quiet habits that feel productive but slowly erode clarity, trust, and results. Time to audit yours.

A seasoned VP I work with recently told me this: “I thought I was leading. But really, I was just managing chaos in a suit”

It hit hard.
Because he’s one of the sharpest operators I know.
But like many senior leaders, he was stuck in maintenance mode, not momentum mode.

Not because he wasn’t capable. But because his daily habits had slowly turned into silent bottlenecks.

Let’s break them down before they quietly cap your leadership potential too.

10 Habits That Quietly Kill Executive Growth

1. Your calendar leaves no room to think
You’re in meetings 75% of your week.
When do you actually lead?
If your calendar doesn’t reflect your strategic priorities, neither will your outcomes.

2. You delegate tasks, not ownership
You offload to-dos but keep the responsibility.
Your team becomes bottlenecked, waiting on your approvals.
Real delegation means trust, boundaries and letting go of perfection.

3. You assume the team knows the ‘why’
You’ve said the vision once… in Q1.
But if your people can’t articulate the mission without looking at a slide deck, you don’t have alignment, you have confusion.
Repeat the “why” until it becomes second nature.

4. You chase urgency over impact
Every fire feels important.
But if you spend your best hours firefighting, who’s piloting the plane?
Strategic leadership requires you to pause, zoom out, and protect what truly matters.

5. You optimize for visibility, not traction
High engagement on a deck or board applause can feel rewarding.
But are you tracking what actually moves the business?
Vanity metrics are comfort food. Focus on the hard data.

6. You wait until it’s perfect
You spend hours refining a slide.
Meanwhile, your competitors already shipped.
Speed beats perfection in 90% of leadership decisions. Launch, learn, refine.

7. You say YES when you should protect your NO
Every yes sounds collaborative.
But every yes fragments your focus.
Your most valuable contribution is clear, undiluted attention on what only you can do.

8. You assume culture will “take care of itself”
You’ve outlined values. Great.
But if they don’t show up in meetings, behaviors, rituals…..they’re dead.
Culture is a living system. It needs oxygen: storytelling, role modeling, repetition.

9. You confuse endurance with effectiveness
Working late, powering through, skipping lunch—those are survival signals, not success strategies.
Your team mirrors your habits.
Protecting your energy isn’t selfish—it’s responsible leadership.

10. You stopped sharpening your own edge
You’re the coach, mentor, decision-maker. But who’s challenging and coaching you?
If you’re not learning, you’re plateauing.
The best leaders invest in their next level before they need it.

The real danger isn’t poor performance. It’s depleted performance that looks acceptable on the surface. That’s the silent cost of these habits.

👉 Ready to upgrade your internal system? Take a pen and a piece of paper and draft your true answer to the 10 habits mentioned above. Guilty in more than 50% of the cases - well, maybe worth talking? :-)

Because high-performance leadership isn’t about doing more.

It’s about removing the hidden habits that block your true power.