Mary,

Excellent article. I maybe foolishly presuming that your final question, "What do you do to avoid leadership self-deception?" was not rhetorical so I thought I would answer it.

I insisted on a 360 degree assessment each year. Before receiving the results I had a "chat" with myself to reinforce that whatever the results may be, the results are accurate. I vowed to accept them as accurate and to put together a personal action plan to address my lowest scores.

While I do believe self-assessment is important, my experience has been that it tends to be inaccurate. I was always able to fully explain to myself why I had taken the action I took and why it was the best action. Unfortunately the staff did not always agree. I learned to put more credence in their assessments than my own.