Practice 1

Face the Truth

Before we can lead change effectively, we need to see clearly. This is where transformation actually begins.

Why This Matters

The people we lead make hundreds of decisions each day based on what they believe is true about our organizations. When our picture of reality differs from theirs, or from what’s actually happening, those decisions compound in directions we didn’t intend.

Leaders who worked through this practice in Think Tank sessions reported a consistent shift: they stopped reacting to symptoms and started addressing root causes. One county administrator said it this way: “I realized I’d been solving the wrong problems for two years.”

Seeing clearly isn’t about finding problems to fix. It’s about expanding what we can perceive so the changes we make actually address what’s real.

The Core Challenge

Every leader has areas where their view is limited, not from failure, but from position. The county administrator sees patterns the department heads miss. The department heads see realities the administrator can’t access. Neither perspective is wrong. Both are incomplete.

Most leadership development starts with vision-casting and goal-setting. But we can’t define what matters until we can see what’s actually happening, not what we assume or hope is happening.

What This Practice Looks Like

The Blind Spot Question

“What might I not be seeing because of where I sit?” This isn’t about inadequacy. It’s about the structural reality that every position has limited sightlines. The question opens space for input we might otherwise miss.

External Influences Mapping

Identifying the factors shaping our decisions that we may not be consciously tracking. Stakeholder expectations, political dynamics, resource constraints, cultural assumptions, the forces acting on leadership from outside.

Environmental Scan

What changed in our operating environment? Workforce expectations, communication norms, political dynamics, technological shifts. The conditions that shaped our successful patterns may have evolved while we were busy executing them.

Diagnostic Questions

Five questions to surface what we might be missing:

When was the last time we actively sought perspective from someone who sees our organization differently than we do?
What assumptions about our teams or organizations have we not tested recently?
If our newest employee could speak freely, what would they tell us that longer-tenured staff wouldn’t?
What signals might we be dismissing because they conflict with what we believe to be true?
How has our operating environment changed in ways that our current approach doesn’t account for?

One conversation to try this week: Ask a direct report: “What’s something about how our team operates that you’ve wondered about but haven’t asked?” Then listen without explaining or defending. The hesitation before they answer tells you something about psychological safety. The answer itself tells you something about what you haven’t been seeing.

Quick Self-Assessment

Three questions to surface where the gap might be widest:

When was the last time someone on our teams disagreed with us openly? If we can’t remember, that tells us something about psychological safety.
Could our direct reports accurately describe our top three priorities? If we’re not sure, that tells us something about clarity.
What’s changed in how we lead in the past two years? If the answer is “not much,” that tells us something about adaptation.

Want to explore these questions further? Try the Blind Spot Check, a free AI diagnostic that surfaces the gap between your intentions and how your organization experiences them. Or take the Shift Assessment for a fuller picture.

Try the Blind Spot Check

Five questions designed to surface the gap between what you intend and how your organization actually experiences it. Free. Takes about five minutes.

Take the Blind Spot Check

The Connection Forward

Face the Truth creates the foundation for everything that follows. We can’t define what matters (Define What Matters) until we can see clearly. We can’t build effective systems (Make It Real) if our diagnosis is incomplete. And we can’t sustain change (Reinforce the Change) if we’re not tracking the right signals.

This isn’t a one-time event. As conditions continue to shift, returning to this practice becomes a regular discipline, not because we failed to see clearly before, but because the landscape keeps changing.

Continue the Methodology

Next: Define What Matters →

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