Invested Leadership · Chapter 03
03Hall of Mirrors
How successful leaders build echo chambers without ever deciding to.
“A true friend stabs you in the front.”Anonymous
The problem
How successful leaders build echo chambers without ever deciding to.
Nobody builds an echo chamber on purpose. It assembles itself. The people who agree with you are easier to be around, so you keep them closer. The people who push back cost you energy, so you route around them. Do that for a few years and you have a leadership team optimized for your comfort.
By then the feedback you get is the feedback you have selected for, and you have no way of knowing what you are not being told. This is the most uncomfortable chapter in the book, and the authors put their own reviews in it rather than asking you to go first.
The cabinet of rivals
Abraham Lincoln wanted the best and brightest in his cabinet — not the best in his party, the best available, including the men who had run against him and thought little of him. He got an administration that argued with him.
The chapter turns that into a working distinction. A mirror tells you what is actually there. A sycophant tells you what keeps them close to you. Both feel like loyalty from the inside; only one is. Stacie and Eric each describe their own mirror, and each describes a 360 review that did not go the way they expected.
Then the mechanics: how to run a 360 that produces something other than flattery, and how after-action reports force the conversations that otherwise get swept under the rug — not after a disaster, but routinely, so the habit exists before you need it.
The chapter is candid that ego will fight you the entire way. Knowing that in advance is most of the defense.
Key takeaways
The authors’ own summary, from the end of the chapter.
- Self-reflection is the first and most important step toward Invested Leadership. Once you know your strengths and weaknesses, you can build out your approach and build up your team.
- Seek out mirrors for honest feedback, and avoid sycophants who act selfishly.
- Engage in regular 360 reviews to surface both personal and organization-wide blind spots.
- After-action reports will ensure you have conversations about issues that might otherwise be swept under the rug.
- Know that ego will continually impede your progress, and be prepared to quiet it.
Surround yourself with the dreamers and the doers — those who see the greatness within you, even when you don’t see it yourself.
Go further
Have them teach this
to your team.
This chapter is one talk in the keynote. The seminar is where your leadership team actually does the work.