The Mike Horne Blog

Every leader eventually inherits someone else's mess. A struggling team. A fractured culture. A strategy that never quite took hold. Leadership rarely begins with ideal circumstances. More often than not, it begins with accepting responsibility for problems we didn't create. That realization stayed with me after a recent dream and became the inspiration for this week's essay.

A dream involving two former leaders raised an unexpected question: What feedback might I have missed during my career? Drawing on experiences with coaching, autonomy, and leadership development, this week's article explores the blind spots we may unknowingly create for ourselves.

Most of us can identify a handful of leaders who shaped our careers in meaningful ways. Some held impressive titles, managed large teams, or led significant organizational initiatives. Yet those are not always the leaders we remember most clearly. The leaders who stay with us are often the ones who changed how we thought about ourselves, trusted us before we fully trusted ourselves, and created opportunities we might not have pursued on our own.