09/17/2026
Senior executives are less self-aware than their frontline managers. And it gets worse with experience, not better.
That's from Tasha Eurich's research — 95% of us think we're self-aware, only 10 to 15% actually are, and the gap is widest at the top.
It's not a character flaw. It's structural. Here's how it shows up in a contracting business.
Every growing company builds an information system by accident. Nobody designs it. It's just who tells who what, and what happens to them afterward.
At twelve people that system is a truck ride. Your super says the schedule won't hold, you hash it out, it's settled before you get to the site.
At sixty people, that same sentence costs him something. He needs your calendar. There are other people in the room. And he's seen how the last three of those went.
So he stops bringing you the problem and starts bringing you the easier version of it. You get the real one nine weeks later in a change order.
Managers who lack self-awareness are 600% more likely to derail — that's PDI Ninth House and the University of Minnesota, not me.
Cheap way to find out where you stand. Eurich calls it a dinner of truth. Take one person who knows your business and has no reason to flatter you, and ask: "What do I do that's most annoying to you?" Then don't explain yourself. Just write it down and say thank you.
The explaining is the reason they stopped telling you in the first place.
Send me the word TRUTH and I'll send you the setup — who to ask and what to do with the answer. Or grab a time: https://apogeeleadership.co/booking
Lead With Clarity.
