Victoria Canham • 4 June 2025 • 5 min read
As a leader, you pour your energy into strategy, innovation, and hitting targets. You believe you're fostering a positive environment, and your intentions are good. Yet, you might observe subtle signs of flagging morale: a dip in proactivity, quiet resistance, or a general lack of spark that you can't quite pinpoint.
The uncomfortable truth for many leaders is that sometimes, despite the best intentions, their own actions – or inactions – create significant blind spots that inadvertently tank team morale and performance.
It's not about being a "bad" person. It's about the gap between intent and impact. Your team watches everything. They see not just what you say, but what you do, what you prioritise, and how you react. And often, what they perceive is vastly different from what you assume.
The biggest blind spot? Assuming others are thinking what you are thinking.
If a leader doesn't actively lead, culture fills the vacuum. And without conscious, intentional leadership, that vacuum rarely fills with anything good.
Here are common leadership blind spots that can unintentionally tank team morale and performance:
How to address: Beyond declaring an open door, demonstrate it. Schedule regular 1-to-1s, explicitly ask for feedback in team meetings (and truly listen), and dedicate specific, visible "open office" or "ask me anything" slots. Prioritise active listening over always having the answer.
You genuinely want your team to innovate and take risks. You offer encouragement. But how do you react when a well-intentioned risk doesn't pay off, or a new process introduces a temporary hiccup? If the unconscious reaction is frustration, blame, or even just a subtle withdrawal of enthusiasm, your team learns to play it safe. Psychological safety plummets.
How to address: Cultivate a "learning from failure" mindset. Publicly acknowledge brave efforts, even if they don't succeed. Focus on what was learned, not who was to blame. Model vulnerability by admitting your own mistakes and what you learned from them.
You champion work-life balance, but you're sending emails at 11 PM. You talk about transparency, but critical decisions happen behind closed doors. You promote collaboration, but micromanage individual tasks. Your team observes these inconsistencies. When words and actions don't align, trust erodes faster than any strategy can be implemented.
How to address: Practice radical self-awareness. Ask for honest, anonymous 360-degree feedback on how your leadership style is perceived. Consciously align your daily actions with the values you espouse. Remember, people mimic what's modelled. If you’re not ready for the brutal truth, start with completing a DiSC profile to help things along.
You might prefer to focus on the big picture, assuming minor interpersonal tensions will resolve themselves. Or perhaps you're conflict-averse. However, unresolved conflict, passive-aggressive communication, or persistent negativity within a team acts like a slow-acting poison, silently corroding morale and trust.
How to address: Step into the discomfort. Address underlying tensions early and directly, but empathetically. Facilitate crucial conversations, set clear boundaries for acceptable team behaviour, and intervene if necessary to protect the psychological safety of the group.
The constant pressure of immediate deadlines can make leaders default to a state of urgency, pushing tasks through regardless of their impact on team well-being or sustainable practices. When your team always feels like they're in crisis mode, they eventually burn out, become reactive, and lose sight of long-term goals or personal development.
How to address: Practice strategic prioritisation. Protect your team's time and focus by saying "no" to less important tasks. Delegate effectively to empower your team. Champion well-being as a strategic imperative, not just a feel-good initiative, recognising that sustainable performance comes from sustainable people.
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Victoria Canham is an ICF-accredited Certified Professional Coach and the founder of Victoria Canham Consultancy. We are a specialist performance consultancy partnering with senior leaders and HR teams to elevate culture, leadership, and employee experience. Rooted in behavioural insight and change expertise, we diagnose what's truly holding performance back, co-creating practical, strategic interventions that drive sustainable business results and build workplaces that work—for people and performance.
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