Uncovering Leadership Blind Spots

And Discovering the Pathway to Motivating Your Employees

 Leadership Blind Spots Revealed!

Briefing Objectives
• Identify key leadership characteristics that motivate and inspire people in the US and around
the world.
• Consider perceptions of our own leadership and ways to be more effective.

Overview
This Dale Carnegie Business Briefing is designed to provide a broad perspective on leadership
characteristics that motivate people to do their best work and stay with their employer. Backed
by groundbreaking research, this workshop will allow participants to discover potential blind
spots around how employees across cultures prioritize the importance of various leadership
characteristics.

Principle 28:
Give the other
person a fine
reputation to live
up to.

1. Dale Carnegie • Global Business Briefing

 “Effective” Leader/ “Ineffective” Leader

“Effective” Leader

Consider a current or former leader who brings/brought out the best in you.

• What characteristics make/made that leader effective?

• How did that leader motivate or inspire you?

Common Traits:

“Ineffective” Leader

Now consider a current or former leader who doesn’t/didn’t bring out your best.

• What characteristics make/made that leader ineffective?

• Why didn’t they motivate you?

Common Traits:

2. Dale Carnegie • Global Business Briefing

 The Research
To uncover the leadership traits and behaviors that are important to employees around the globe,
Dale Carnegie launched a global leadership survey.

Research Goals
• Impact of leadership characteristics on motivation across cultures
• Identify priorities and importance
• Inform global leaders

High-Level Global Findings

• Globally speaking, in almost all cases, respondents selected the interpersonal trait over the task-oriented one,
when asked to select from a pair of traits, one representing a task-oriented style of leadership, compared to a trait
representing an interpersonal style of leadership.

• The top five leadership attributes are also those with the largest gaps between importance and performance.

• Comparing the percent of respondents who said they are “very satisfied” when their supervisors exhibit the top five
effective leadership behaviors most or all the time (28%) to all respondents who report being “very satisfied” (17%),
we see an increase of about two-thirds (65%).

• In total, 56% of respondents from all regions said they intend to stay in their job for at least the next two to five years.

• Taking the average impact that supervisors exhibiting effective behaviors most or all of the time have on intention to
stay, direct supervisor behavior increases the intention to stay by nearly 14%, to about 64%.

3. Dale Carnegie • Global Business Briefing

 Motivational Trade-Offs and Gap Analysis Notes
1. What do you find interesting about the behavior preferences of the US vs. the combined global responses?

2. How do these results compare to your own expectations or experiences?

3. What do you find interesting about the largest gaps between the US against the largest gaps worldwide?

4. Why do you think these gaps between importance and performance exist in the US?

5. What are the implications?

6. How do these results compare to your own experiences?

4. Dale Carnegie • Global Business Briefing

 Our Definitions of Trust

Externally Reliable
Dependable, say what they mean and mean what they say – people
can count on them. They are unwavering – people don’t worry that
they are going to be dishonest with themselves or others.

Facts: 30% of employees from around the world said their supervisor
can always be trusted to say and do things consistent with their beliefs. In
contrast, 17% said their supervisor is rarely or never internally reliable.

Internally Reliable
Consistent, in words and actions. They know who they are and who
they are not. They are true to themselves. They don’t behave in a
way that is contrary to their core principles and beliefs.

Facts: Compared across regions, we see that respondents from Brazil

and Mexico (45%) and the US and Canada (43%) are more likely to say
their supervisor is true to his or her own beliefs. For a majority of employees
across Asia and Europe, the vast majority of supervisors are perceived to
do and say things consistent with their own principles only sometimes, at
best.

5. Dale Carnegie • Global Business Briefing

 Perceptions of Supervisory Honesty
External Reliability:
What would you say about your own supervisor?

How has this impacted your willingness to do your best work?

Internal Reliability:
What would you say about your own supervisor?

How has this impacted your willingness to do your best work?

6. Dale Carnegie • Global Business Briefing

 Looking for Blind Spots
The Johari Window is a technique used to help people better understand their relationship with themselves and
others, it was created by psychologists Joseph Luft (1916–2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916–1995) in 1955.

Known to self Unknown to self

Known
to others
Open Blind Spot

Unknown
to others
Hidden Unknown

Open: Anything you know about yourself and are willing to share is part of your open area, or arena.
These are your leadership traits you and others are aware of.

Hidden: The aspects about yourself that you are aware of but might not want others to know are
known as your hidden area, or facade.

Unknown: The unknown area includes aspects unknown to you or anyone else.

Blind Spot: Any aspect that you do not know about yourself, but others have become aware of,
is in your blind area.

7. Dale Carnegie • Global Business Briefing

 Group Exercise

For each of the four key behaviors, discuss with your group 4 Key Findings
examples of how you’ve seen leaders effectively practice these
behaviors. What did they say or do?

1. Sincere appreciation and praise are essential.

2. Employees demand leaders who can admit when they’re wrong.

3. Honesty and integrity in action drive engagement.

4. Effective leaders truly listen to and value their employees’ opinions.

8. Dale Carnegie • Global Business Briefing

Notes

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