Your greatest strengths can create your greatest blind spots. And sometimes the people you trust most are looking at the world through the same lens you are.
There’s a new Elizabeth Holmes documentary called You Can See Everything.
Which is an interesting title, considering what the filmmakers discovered while making it.
They could watch the same footage, hear the same conversations, and come away with completely different interpretations of what had happened.
Same information. Different conclusions.
And now the documentary itself is being criticized for what it leaves out.
There’s an important distinction here. Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors. Deliberate deception isn’t a leadership blind spot, and different perspectives don’t make established facts negotiable.
But the disagreement surrounding the film raises a fascinating question.
How can intelligent, experienced people look at exactly the same thing and see something entirely different?
I have a few thoughts about that.
And they cost me about $25 million to learn.
The most expensive thing I couldn’t see
I’ve spent much of my career helping organizations solve difficult problems, challenge conventional thinking, and find opportunities other people couldn’t see.
I’ve worked with everyone from scrappy startups to Fortune 100 companies.
And for a long time, I was pretty good at it.
Then I experienced a $25 million loss in revenue.
That’s a lot of business tuition.
And it’s a big part of the reason I wrote Your Seat at the Table.
The book tells the story of Jack Renner, a successful entrepreneur whose marketing firm suddenly finds itself struggling.
Jack is smart. Experienced. Successful.
He’s built a remarkable business by seeing possibilities other people overlooked.
But when the world around him begins to change, his greatest strength becomes part of his problem.
He keeps approaching challenges through the same lens that helped him succeed in the first place.
And he has surrounded himself with talented people who, despite their different roles and experiences, aren’t necessarily helping him see the problem in a fundamentally different way.
Jack’s story is fictionalized.
The expensive lessons behind it aren’t.
Here’s what I eventually learned.
The problem isn’t always that you don’t have the answer. Sometimes it’s that you’re asking the wrong question.
Or worse, you’re surrounded by people who are asking the same questions you are.
I’ve come to believe that one of the most overlooked advantages in leadership is diversity of thought.
Not simply having people with different backgrounds or job titles around the table.
I mean having people who genuinely approach problems differently. People who question assumptions you didn’t realize you were making. People whose natural strengths help them recognize something your strengths might cause you to overlook.
Because you can have an incredibly talented team and still be surrounded by people who see the world the same way you do.
You can’t read the label from inside the jar
I’ve always loved that expression.
When you’re running a successful business, your experience becomes one of your greatest assets.
You’ve seen what works. You’ve developed instincts. You’ve made decisions that other people questioned and been proven right.
Over time, you become extraordinarily good at seeing certain things.
The problem?
You can become equally good at overlooking others.
A visionary sees possibilities that don’t yet exist.
An operator sees the systems and processes necessary to make something work.
A strategist sees patterns, risks, and opportunities that might not be obvious to anyone else.
Each of those perspectives is valuable.
But every strength comes with blind spots.
That’s one of the ideas behind my Six Seats framework.
We each have natural ways of approaching problems and making decisions. And those strengths influence not only what we notice, but what we fail to consider.
The more successful we become, the easier it is to trust our own perspective.
After all, it’s worked pretty well so far.
Until it doesn’t.
Why diversity of thought matters in leadership
Here’s something I’ve noticed after years of working with CEOs.
Most accomplished leaders don’t have a shortage of smart people around them.
They have executive teams, advisors, consultants, investors, and colleagues.
They have access to more information than they could possibly consume.
And increasingly, they have AI tools capable of producing a hundred answers before they’ve finished their morning coffee.
But none of that necessarily solves the problem.
Because the real issue may not be a shortage of answers.
It may be a shortage of perspectives.
Think about a CEO considering a major acquisition.
The CEO sees a transformational opportunity.
The CFO sees financial exposure.
The COO sees the difficulty of integrating two organizations.
They’re all looking at the same deal.
And each perspective might reveal something important.
But what if everyone at the table shares the CEO’s fundamental assumptions?
What if nobody questions whether the acquisition is the right way to solve the problem in the first place?
What if the most valuable question is one that hasn’t occurred to anyone in the room?
That’s where things get interesting.
The right person at your table isn’t necessarily the one who knows more than you do.
Sometimes it’s the one who thinks differently enough to ask a question that changes how you see the entire situation.
And that’s what makes diversity of thought so valuable.
It’s not about treating every perspective as equally correct. It’s about bringing different assumptions into the open, testing them against evidence, and asking better questions before making a decision.
The right table isn’t necessarily the most comfortable one
There’s another complication.
The higher you climb, the harder it can become to find people who will challenge you.
Your executive team may be exceptional. They may be courageous, honest, and deeply committed to your success.
But they still work for you.
That relationship matters.
Some questions are difficult to explore with the people responsible for carrying out your decisions.
Some uncertainties can create unnecessary concern.
And some people may hesitate to challenge an idea when the person who loves it also signs their paycheck.
That’s one reason I believe so strongly in independent peers.
Other CEOs understand the responsibility of making consequential decisions.
They’ve made expensive mistakes. They’ve navigated uncertainty. They’ve had to make calls when there wasn’t an obvious right answer.
And they don’t work for you.
But simply gathering a bunch of successful CEOs isn’t enough, either.
I’ve been part of peer groups that were extraordinarily valuable. And I’ve seen how easily a group can become comfortable, predictable, or full of people who think alike.
A room full of agreement can feel wonderful.
It can also be dangerous.
The question isn’t whether the people around your table are intelligent or successful.
It’s whether they bring perspectives you’re missing, have the freedom to challenge you, and care enough to ask the difficult questions.
That’s why I believe the composition of the table matters so much.
It’s also why the Six Seats framework focuses on deliberately different leadership strengths.
Not six people trying to prove they’re right.
Not six people reassuring you that your instincts are brilliant.
Six different ways of seeing what one person alone might miss.
Of course, different perspectives aren’t automatically correct. They still need to be examined, challenged, and tested against evidence.
That’s what makes the conversation valuable.
The goal isn’t more opinions.
It’s better thinking.
The lesson I wish I’d learned sooner
Looking back, the most painful part of my experience wasn’t simply losing $25 million in revenue.
It was realizing that some of the things that helped make me successful also made it harder to recognize what needed to change.
I had plenty of experience.
Plenty of ideas.
Plenty of confidence.
What I didn’t always have were the questions I hadn’t thought to ask.
And that’s the lesson I hope other CEOs can learn without paying the same tuition.
You can be an extraordinary leader and still have blind spots.
You can surround yourself with exceptional people and still be missing important perspectives.
You can have a brilliant strategy and still be solving the wrong problem.
None of us can see everything.
And none of us needs to.
But we do need to think carefully about the people whose perspectives shape our most important decisions.
Because the table that helped you become successful may not be the table you need for whatever comes next.
You can’t see everything. But the right table can change what you see.
So here’s a question worth considering:
If your greatest strength were becoming your biggest blind spot, who at your table would recognize it before you did?
Mike Maddock is an entrepreneur, author, and founder of Flourish Advisory Boards. His Six Seats framework explores how different leadership strengths influence the way we see opportunities, confront challenges, and make decisions.
Explore Mike’s Six Seats framework to discover how the perspectives around your table can help you recognize what you might otherwise miss.