Our greatest strengths can quietly become blind spots.
– Jill Macauley
In leadership, the very strengths that helped you rise can quietly become the very things that hold you back—especially when roles, markets, or life circumstances change. That tension is at the heart of this conversation. In this interview, Stacey Chillemi sits down with Jill Macauley, COO of Behavioral Essentials, who helps leaders see what they can’t see about themselves and understand how their behaviors are interpreted by the people around them. Drawing on years in traditional business consulting and her work with the Blind Spotting framework, Jill explains why awareness, reflection, and honest feedback are essential for sustainable success.
This interview unpacks how identity, behavior, stress, and changing expectations shape the way leaders show up at work and at home. They explore where patterns come from, how to recognize when something isn’t working anymore, and what it really looks like to evolve with more adaptability and wisdom. Whether you’re leading a team, a company, or simply your own career, this conversation offers grounded, practical insights you can start applying this week.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?
If my parents described me as a 10-year-old girl growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, they would probably recognize the same Jill you see today. My core personality has remained remarkably consistent, despite shifts in my roles over time. Professionally, I spent about 15 years in traditional business consulting, working with executives and leadership teams. Again and again, I saw that it wasn’t the strategy, the plans, or the KPIs holding organizations back—it was the humans at the top and the lack of a mechanism for true reflection.
That experience is what led me to Behavioral Essentials and to my current role as COO. I had to take off some old identity “name tags” as the doer and master project orchestrator, and step into work that focuses deeply on the psychology of people in business. Today, my job is about helping leaders see what they can’t see about themselves, especially when their greatest strengths are quietly starting to work against them.
How can a strength quietly become a blind spot?
A strength becomes a blind spot when you lean on it so heavily that you stop noticing when the situation has changed. It’s like always reaching for your favorite hammer, even when the moment clearly calls for a screwdriver. The tool that used to serve you well simply doesn’t fit the new context, but you keep using it because it feels familiar and reliable.
Our behavioral strengths, skills, and motives work the same way. When we default to what we’ve always counted on and ignore the signals that the environment, role, or requirements are different, that strength starts to tip into a liability. What once helped us succeed can quietly become the very thing that holds us back.
What are some common blind spots you see in high achievers, connectors, or super-responsible people?
Blind spots often show up in how our behavior is experienced by others, not in how we perceive ourselves. Take the very hard worker with tons of perseverance: they get things done, and people admire that. But at some point, they may start doing tasks they shouldn’t be doing, simply because they know they can power through. They stop asking, “Why am I doing this?” and just keep acting, which can pull them away from the work that truly matters.
Another common example is the super achiever who moves quickly and is driven by success. Their speed can cause them to miss important signals—from the market, from their team, or from key relationships. They may unintentionally leave people behind, expecting everyone to keep up with their pace. Over time, those gaps and misalignments are exactly what trip them up and hinder the success they’re trying so hard to create.
What signals tell us that a strength isn’t helping anymore and is actually getting in the way?
Some signals are subtle, and some feel like a two-by-four to the head. One of the clearest signals is patterns—when you keep bumping up against the same problem over and over again. If you’re honest, you start to notice that the common denominator in those situations is you. That’s usually the moment to pause and ask, “What am I missing here?”
Your openness to self-awareness plays a big role in whether you catch those signals or ignore them. It means paying attention to feedback from the people around you and noticing where there’s friction or repetition. The concept of blind spots is not purely individual; it’s collaborative. You need others to help you see what you can’t see, whether through structured tools like the Blind Spotting assessment or through honest conversations with your team.
How do identity blind spots show up when our roles or situations change?
Identity blind spots show up when the roles we hold change, but our self-definition doesn’t. The self-awareness framework we lean on, developed by Martin Dubin in Blind Spotting, starts with identity and behavior and then extends into intellect, emotion, traits, and motives. Over time, some roles remain constant—I will always be my parents’ daughter—but others evolve dramatically.
Becoming a mother changed me. Moving from being a doer, project manager, and orchestrator of all things into the COO role at Behavioral Essentials required me to take off identity labels that had been positively reinforced for years. I knew I could count on myself to create a great PowerPoint deck, but that’s no longer my primary job. We see something similar with clients, like the CEO who embraced “innovative entrepreneur” during the startup phase and then struggled to let go of that identity when the company matured and needed a business-building CEO. The business shifted, but the identity didn’t, and that gap became his blind spot.
What’s the simplest way for leaders to build behavioral awareness without a 40-page assessment?
First, I’ll clarify that our assessment is not 40 pages. The simplest way to start building behavioral awareness is by creating small pockets of space for reflection. That can look like journaling for some leaders, and many executive coaches advocate for that. Personally, I know journaling works, but I also know I’m never going to be a dedicated journaler.
My version of reflection is getting up, taking a walk, and letting something process as I move. During that time, I asked myself questions like: What was my role in that situation? What could I have done better? What did I miss? Why did I do what I did? Alongside that, you look at your team. A diverse team that feels safe to challenge you is invaluable. When people around you can say, “I disagree,” or “You’re prioritizing speed over doing this the right way,” they become a mirror that reveals what you might otherwise miss.
How do you distinguish between a personality trait and a behavioral pattern that can change?
Personality is the part of us that tends to stay consistent over time, while behavior is more nimble and adjustable. If you asked my parents to talk about who I was as a child, they’d probably describe characteristics that still fit me today. I might feel very different from that 10-year-old in Cleveland, but my personality showed then and shows now in similar ways.
Behavior, on the other hand, works more like a dimmer switch than an on/off switch. With awareness, you can dial certain behaviors up or down depending on the situation. I will always naturally lean toward being a connector and a relationship person, and I do enjoy the spotlight. But I can consciously choose to step back so I’m not taking too much space, over-connecting, or neglecting management responsibilities. That’s the key difference: personality is the underlying pattern, and behavior is how brightly or quietly it shows up—and behavior is where intentional change is most possible.
What role does stress play in the way our blind spots show up?
Stress magnifies our default patterns. When we’re under pressure, we go straight to what we believe we can count on to get us through. That’s the moment when strengths slip most quickly into blind spots, because we’re not pausing to ask if our go-to behavior actually fits the situation. We just want something that feels reliable and familiar to work.
In stressful environments, self-awareness is usually the first thing to get squeezed out. Without a foundation of understanding your own defaults, you’re likely to double down on them in ways that make the stress even worse. The power of awareness is that when stress hits, you can take a breath, recognize your default tendency, and either adjust it or scaffold around yourself with people who balance you out. But that only happens if you’ve done the work before the high-pressure moment arrives.
How can someone invite feedback without getting overly defensive?
For many people, inviting feedback can feel threatening, especially if the stakes are high. Sometimes leaders only really engage with their blind spots when the board or executive team brings in a coach or consultant to illuminate something they didn’t see. In those moments, it can lead to significant changes, including role transitions, and defensiveness is a very natural response. Your body is trying to protect you from something that feels painful and unexpected.
The key is to start this work before you reach a crisis point. If your bottom line is already in the red, that’s a clear signal to begin now rather than waiting. If you know a big change is coming, start now as well. Doing this work in relatively safe conditions—with colleagues, confidants, and coaches—allows you to hear, process, and grow from feedback with less defensiveness. Otherwise, the pattern is predictable: we get defensive, we run from the problem, and it shows up again later in a different form.
You talk about evolving with awareness, adaptability, and wisdom. What does that progression look like in real life?
The progression starts with understanding why any of this matters in the first place. That’s a big reason we appreciate Blind Spotting as a book and framework. The book, released by Harvard Business Review Press, shares stories of more than ten executives, with names and companies changed so readers can see themselves or people they know in those stories. In many cases, even with the help of an executive coach, the individuals couldn’t change enough to stay in the role or keep the company on track.
Those stories bring the stakes into clear focus. From there, the progression is about conversation and curiosity. You talk to people you trust, ask better questions, and lean on coaches who can help you navigate the psychology of business and leadership—things most of us were not taught in our formal education. Assessments, including ours, become tools to prompt deeper reflection rather than verdicts about who you are. There’s no fixed timeline for this journey. Leadership is a practice, and self-awareness is a practice. The important part is to begin and to keep going, ideally before you’re in a state of conflict.
When a leader has been successful for years, how do you help them change without feeling like they’re losing their edge?
Helping a long-successful leader change starts with how they’re framing that change in their own mind. We spend time exploring what they feel they are losing—maybe a type of work that made them feel competent, a responsibility that gave them a sense of importance, or a role that has been deeply tied to their confidence. If we don’t name that, it tends to get shoved into a mental box of “emotions we don’t talk about,” which only makes it more powerful.
I see emotions as data. When leaders say emotions have no place at work, they’re essentially choosing to ignore a critical data set. It would be like deciding not to look at a key financial metric for an entire year. Instead, we treat emotions as information that helps us understand what matters to that leader and where they’re feeling threatened or unsettled. As they recognize that, they begin to see that they are not losing their edge—they are gaining better data about themselves and their environment, which ultimately helps them adapt without abandoning who they are.
What are a few behavioral essentials every leader should practice weekly?
One essential is deceptively simple: breathing. Slower, deeper breaths create more clarity and more space to respond instead of react. At Behavioral Essentials, one of our core values is “relax into it.” You can’t relax into anything if you’re holding your breath or staying in a constant state of tension.
Relaxing doesn’t mean you stop caring or become passive. You can still go into “battle” in a relaxed state; in many ways, you’ll handle more when you’re not bracing against everything. Another essential is remembering that your business is fundamentally a people business. If you’re not prioritizing how you show up as a person—your self-awareness, your behavior, your impact—you’re ultimately hurting your business, no matter how strong the operational plan looks.
What should someone do when the strength everyone praises is also burning them out?
When the very thing people praise you for is burning you out, it’s time for honest reflection. That’s usually a signal that something in the environment or structure isn’t aligned with what you can sustain healthily. Many people are uncomfortable asking, “Is this the right environment for me?” because it immediately raises questions about family, finances, loyalty, and history. Those concerns are real, but avoiding the question doesn’t make the burnout go away.
Being open to change doesn’t necessarily mean you have to leave your organization. It might mean exploring a different role, a different team, or a different scaffolding of colleagues around you. It could involve shifting how work is structured so your strengths are used in a way that doesn’t constantly drain you. But if you’ve tried those adjustments and the environment still isn’t workable for who you are, it may be time to consider whether a bigger structural change is needed.
How do you think about burnout and the role of coaching in preventing it?
Burnout is, unfortunately, built into how many systems operate today. In a lot of cases, the economy pushes us to work as hard as we can for as few resources as possible, and that dynamic is going to produce burnout if nothing else changes. Understanding yourself—your skills, your intellect, your emotional capacity—is a critical part of mitigating that risk.
Burnout isn’t just about being tired and needing a break. It often shows up when you feel like you’re constantly battling an environment that doesn’t fit who you are or how you work best. Coaches can be incredibly helpful in navigating that. Some coaches focus on helping you develop intellect, others focus on skills, and at Behavioral Essentials, we’re very focused on the psychology of the human in the workplace. We’re not going to teach you how to dribble the ball; we’re going to help you understand what’s happening in your mind and emotions when you’re taking that high-pressure shot. Over a career, you may need different kinds of coaches at different points, and that’s part of the normal evolution of leadership.
What’s your advice for leading multi-generational or hybrid teams when your old style isn’t landing anymore?
In multi-generational or hybrid environments, old-school leadership styles can clash hard with newer expectations. Some leaders still operate from a “bootstraps” mindset: get your work done, don’t talk about what’s going on underneath, and rely on rewards and punishments to drive performance. Shifting that mindset, especially later in a career, takes a lot of inner work, because it’s tied to deeply held beliefs about effort, worth, and identity.
If you’re reporting to someone with that mindset, it becomes a question of values. You may need to decide whether this environment aligns with who you are and how you want to lead. Sometimes you can create a healthier subculture with your peers and direct reports; sometimes the healthiest option is to leave. If you are the leader in that position, it can help to talk with people who know you well about what you’re clinging to and why. For many from the Boomer and older Gen X generations, identity and worth have been tightly tied to job titles, and when those titles are threatened, it can trigger panic and rigidity. Reaching out for counsel before a major pain event can make all the difference.
Listeners were promised five concrete actions. What are five things they can do this week to spot and soften their blind spots?
First, take a few minutes to list what you see as your core strengths. Then, literally put the word “too” in front of each one—too energetic, too decisive, too assertive, too supportive, too quick, too collaborative. That simple exercise gives you a quick window into how each strength might tip into a blind spot.
Second, take that list to your coworkers and ask, “What is it like to work with me when I am too [fill in the blank]?” Listen carefully and process their responses with them; this is where their experience becomes invaluable data. Third, start watching yourself in meetings. Third, in the middle of your workday, pause for 30 to 60 seconds and ask, “Why am I doing what I’m doing right now? What might be motivating this?” That small live check-in builds awareness over time.
Fourth, identify a trusted confidant at work and invite them into the process. Ask them to help you unpack patterns like, “Why do you think I keep doing this in certain situations?” Finally, lean into the Blind Spotting journey by picking up the book and walking through it. Use the stories, questions, and tools as a guide to understand your own patterns and those of the people you lead, so you can make targeted tweaks that have a real impact.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
The easiest way to connect is through behavioralessentials.com and blindspotting.com. On the Blind Spotting site, you can find the Blind Spotting book, the Blind Spotting assessment, and information about our performance-based coaching. We work at the individual level through one-on-one executive coaching, at the team level through workshops that connect blind spots to business KPIs and goals, and at the organizational level to build cultures of awareness that last. We would love for you to experience the Blind Spotting assessment, and if you use code “SPOTSTACEY”, you can complete one for FREE!
Jill, thank you so much for being here today. Your insights, tools, and stories are truly valuable, and I know they’re going to help a lot of leaders see themselves more clearly.
Thank you, Stacey. It’s been wonderful to be here, and I really appreciate the opportunity to share this work with your audience.
