I Keep Turning Around But I Still Can't Quite See My Blind Spot...

To be human is to have blind spots. Because we are both human, this is true for coaches as well as our coaching clients. Nevertheless, one of the things we try to do, as coaches, is help our clients feel both comfortable and aware enough to spot those pesky things.  Better yet, if they then can grab hold of one, and find ways to reduce it and its impact.

At least two clients last week made me think about a particular kind of (common) blind spot. Among other conditions, blind spots can occur when we have feelings about people, interactions and situations that we aren’t comfortable fully admitting to. One client, who I will call Nadia, had been on a planned visit to a direct report, “Cynthia”, who typically sits in a different location than does Nadia. Cynthia often excludes Nadia from information and activities (the management of which can be a leadership topic for another time!) On this occasion, this practice manifested in various ways, including a pre-holiday gift exchange that Cynthia had organized locally, in which she had not included Nadia. Nadia, being human, felt a mix of emotions: She felt left out, isolated, hurt, angry, vulnerable, annoyed, etc.  She also wanted to be professional and appropriate as a leader. How best should Nadia manage her mix of emotions and thoughts?

Another client, Max, has a challenge that brings up a similar question of managing a mix of deeper emotions and solution-oriented thoughts, with the added challenge of increasing exhaustion from sustained overwork. Max is acknowledged as a deep subject matter expert in his field, both internally in his company and externally in his field. His firm has the (good) problem of having more demand from clients than they do the staff to execute it. Max has long believed that the true answer to this problem lies in both how the work is organized and in their hiring practices. He strongly believes that the real solution lies in organizing the work and staff deployment differently than his leadership seems to be aware of. In the meantime, the immediate labor needs have lead Max to feel increasingly frustrated and overwhelmed. He reports getting pulled into doing work at lower levels than he should, given the other, more impactful ways he could be contributing to the company’s success. He feels powerless, overworked, ignored, unvalued, and frustrated. In his case, the question is, to what degree can he influence his situation, in ways that avoid burning out both himself and other staff in the short-term, and finding more effective solutions for the long-term?

In both of these cases, these clients have absolutely legitimate feelings and thoughts. In listening to each of them, I noticed the mix of head and heart that wove through their conversations. They each mixed objective, professional considerations with very personal feelings as they spoke.

Given that my goal is always to help my clients make progress in their areas of challenge, in my book the first step is to recognize and validate their strong emotions, when those surface. This is for the simple reason that people tend to think more clearly and better overall when they are not upset. What helps people who are upset, to not be upset?  Often it’s having someone listen deeply, patiently and supportively to them as they identify and voice the reasons for their upset, which helps dispel the energy of their emotions. If you don’t, those emotions hide in their blind spots and affect their behavior, until they are dispelled.

Many people want to be as professional as possible, and to that end, put their emotions in a compartment so that they are as professional as possible at work. Sometimes this works, to some degree, and other times, the personal overshadows the professional. When that happens, it typically works best for the person to talk until the energy is dispelled, and problem-solving can occur.

This is what my clients and I are in the midst of.  Having listened, reflected back, and helped them look into their emotional blind spots and reduce the energy keeping them there, I look forward to discussing their next steps, the next time we speak!

(First published at Arden Coaching on 11 January 2026.)