How Great Leaders Think: The Art of Reframing

Chapter 5Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us

One of the most basic and pervasive causes of leadership failure is interpersonal blindness. Many leaders simply don’t know their impact on other people. Even worse, they don’t know that they don’t know. They assume that other people see them pretty much the way they see themselves, then they blame others when things go wrong. A famous example occurred during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, after the Republican nominee, John McCain, selected the then largely unknown governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, to be his running mate. At first, this looked like a smart move, as Palin gave a rousing and well-received acceptance speech at the Republican convention. But Palin was new to the national political ...