RESOURCE D

READINGS ON LEADERSHIP BLINDSPOTS

Learning from Others’ Successes

• Michael A. Roberto has written a number of excellent books on leadership; his Know What You Don't Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009) is the most relevant in regard to blindspots.
• Robert I. Sutton, in Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best … and Learn from the Worst (Business Plus, 2012), has insightful things to say about leadership in general. This book is a good place to start if you are new to Sutton's work. I also suggest reading his blogs on the HBR Blog Network (blogs.hbr.org/sutton).
• Marshall Goldsmith is well known for his insights on how successful executives avoid the problems that plague others, particularly in regard to their behavior; see his book What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful (Hyperion, 2007).

Learning from Others’ Failures

• Richard S. Tedlow, in Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look Facts in the Face—and What to Do About It (Portfolio, 2010), presents rich case histories of corporate denial.
• Sydney Finkelstein, in Why Smart Executives Fail (Portfolio, 2003), provides an interesting assessment of failure with many case studies.
• Max Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel, in Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do About It (Princeton University Press, 2012), view blindspots from an ethical vantage point, with useful models and recommendations.
• Kathryn Schulz, in Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error (HarperCollins, 2010), looks at the reasons why we make mistakes. Her work combines research with an interesting philosophical view of the errors we make.

The Nature of Self-Deception

• Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013) and a highly respected scholar, examines how people process information and the mistakes they make in doing so.
• Daniel Goleman was one of the first to write for a general audience on what research can tell us about self-deception; see, in particular, his book Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception (Simon & Schuster, 1996).
• Malcolm Gladwell discusses the logic and limits of leadership hubris in “Cocksure: Banks, Battles, and the Psychology of Overconfidence,” The New Yorker, July 27, 2009.
• Robert Trivers, in The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life (Basic Books, 2011), offers a fascinating mix of sociobiology and personal history. Trivers is one of the most original thinkers on self-deception.