Different Rooms
Level 4. Scores 0 to 25. You and your raters are describing two different leaders.
You and the people you asked are describing two different leaders. Across most or all four dimensions the gap is large, and it probably runs in one direction. Before you read further: three to five people rated you, anonymously, on twelve behaviours, in three minutes. This is a signal, not a trial. It is a strong signal.
Two possibilities, and you have to be honest about which one it is. The first is that you asked the wrong people, or the wrong moment: a team in the middle of a restructure, a peer you are in conflict with, a report you have just given hard news to.
If that is true, the result is real for that relationship and may not generalise. Run it again with a different set. The second possibility is that this is how you are seen, and the people who see you that way have not told you, because the gap itself is the reason they have not told you.
The direction line on your results screen tells you which of three things this is. If you rate yourself far above your raters, you are probably describing the leader you intend to be; the intention is sincere, and it is not what is arriving.
If your raters rate you far above where you rate yourself, that is rare and worth taking seriously in the other direction: you are underrating yourself so heavily that it is likely affecting how you lead, so ask someone you trust why. If there are large gaps in both directions, the people you asked do not agree with you or with each other, and something in how you lead is landing very differently on different people; that is the thing to find out.
The widest gap I have seen belonged to a founder who believed he was the most accessible person in his company. Door open, phone on, an answer to any question within minutes. His team described someone they could not reach. Not because he was absent. Because every question came back as an answer, fast and final, and after a while people stopped bringing him half-formed problems and solved them badly on their own. He believed he was helping. They experienced being overruled before they had finished.
The first thing that moved was small. He started ending his replies with a question instead of a decision. That was not a personality change. It was one habit. Nothing else changed for weeks, and then the problems started reaching him earlier, while they were still cheap to fix.
What to do this week: one conversation, with the person on your team you trust most, opened with "I asked for feedback and it was worse than I expected. I am not going to defend myself. What do you see?" Then listen without answering. Do that once before you do anything else, including deciding the data is wrong.
This is not a place to work from alone. A coach, a peer group, or a trusted senior colleague is the right next move, not a plan.
Next step: read what executive coaching involves and costs on the executive coaching cost index, or see whether the CEO mastermind fits.
Next step
The other results
- In StepThey see you as you see yourself. Now ask a harder room.
- CloseYou mostly agree, with one gap specific enough to close.
- Out of StepA real gap on more than one dimension. It stings and works.
About this result
This is one of 4 results from the Blind Spot 360 Lite, a free tool that shows the score without an email. Aggregate figures are at the statistics page once 30 completions have been reached. More free tools are at the tools shelf.