What is a career blind spot?

A career blind spot is a pattern shaping your decisions that you cannot see in yourself. The idea comes from the Johari Window (Luft and Ingham, 1955), where the blind area is what others can see about you that you cannot see in yourself. Because most people overestimate their self-awareness, these patterns often steer decisions from below the surface (Eurich, 2017).

What are the three career blind spots in this diagnostic?

Competence Attachment, Security Illusion, and Reputation Anchoring. These are the three patterns Dr. Betty's qualitative research with African professional women found most often steer career decisions without being noticed. Most people carry traces of all three; one is usually doing the most work at any given time.

Why can I not see my own blind spot?

Because the same gaps that create a blind spot also hide it from you. Research on self-assessment shows the skills you lack are often the very skills you would need to notice you lack them (Kruger and Dunning, 1999). That is why an external prompt, like this diagnostic, surfaces what self-reflection alone tends to miss.

What is Competence Attachment?

Competence Attachment is over-identifying with the competence that got you here, so it becomes hard to move beyond even when it is quietly keeping you in place. It often shows up as the CV lines and the expertise that are doing the work of keeping you in your current sector.

RISE with Betty™

The Three Blind Spots Diagnostic

What you cannot see is steering you.

Most career transitions stall not because the work is wrong, but because the woman making the transition is operating with a Blind Spot she has not yet named.

Time ~5 minutes

Format 15 statements + research questions

You receive Result + 7 AI prompts

Cost Free, anonymous

This diagnostic surfaces which of three Blind Spots is currently shaping your career decisions: Competence Attachment, Security Illusion, or Reputation Anchoring. Fifteen statements and a few research questions, about five minutes.

At the end you will receive a personalised result and seven AI prompts calibrated to your dominant pattern, designed to help you prepare for your transition with real, operational artefacts you can produce in a single AI conversation.

Before you begin

Answer honestly, especially where it is uncomfortable.

Your responses generate seven AI prompts calibrated specifically to your Blind Spot. The prompts only work if your answers reflect what is actually true for you, not what you wish were true.

This diagnostic is not a test. It is a thinking tool for the preparation phase of your transition.

Built by Dr. Betty Eziakor for African professional women navigating multicultural corporate environments.

Diagnostic Page 1 of 3 · 0 of 15 answered

15 statements

How strongly do you agree?

There are no right answers. The diagnostic only works if you answer honestly. Rate each statement from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

A few questions Ten quick fields

A few questions

Help us understand who took this.

Ten questions, mostly single-select. Your answers help us aggregate research on African professional women's career transitions, they shape The RISE Report™ and future writing. A few more research questions follow.

A few more questions Four research questions

For The RISE Report™

What's actually shaping the move.

Four research questions. These answers don't change your result, they help us understand what shapes career transitions for women like you. The findings will appear in The RISE Report™ with no identifying information.

Rank your factors Drag in order of impact

Ranking step

Rank your factors by impact.

Drag the items below to rank them. 1 is the most impactful factor on your transition decisions right now; the last position is the least impactful of the ones you selected. You can rearrange as many times as you like.

Final step Almost there

Where to send your result

Your result and seven prompts.

You will see your dominant Blind Spot named on the next screen. We will also email you a branded PDF version of the result. We do not collect your name, and we do not ask for a phone number. Anonymous means anonymous.

Your email required

Your result PDF will arrive here. You will also be subscribed to The RISE Report™, Dr. Betty's weekly newsletter (unsubscribe anytime).

Your result

A note on what this is, and what it isn’t.

This diagnostic is a snapshot, not a diagnosis. The Three Blind Spots are pattern language, they describe how successful, accomplished women often work against themselves at career inflection points. They are not personality types. They are not permanent traits. Most women carry traces of all three; one is usually doing the most work at any given moment, and which one shifts across a career.

If your dominant Blind Spot does not match how you see yourself, sit with the result for 48 hours before deciding it is wrong. The Blind Spot is, by definition, the thing you do not see clearly. The discomfort of the result is often the signal that the diagnostic worked.

This work is grounded in qualitative research with African professional women navigating career transitions across five sectors and multiple countries. It is not a clinical instrument. It is a thinking tool, designed to make visible what was previously invisible.

Your three scores

Higher means the pattern is doing more work in your decisions right now. Most women carry some of all three.

Competence Attachment

Security Illusion

Reputation Anchoring

Your seven prompts

Seven AI prompts to start working on this.

Download your toolkit

The branded PDF version, yours to keep.

Open it now, save it for later, share it with the women in your circle who would benefit.

Download PDF

The research behind this tool

Grounded in Dr. Betty's qualitative research with African professional women navigating career transitions across five sectors and multiple countries.
Luft, J., and Ingham, H. (1955). The Johari Window: a graphic model of interpersonal awareness. The origin of the career blind spot, what others see in us that we cannot see in ourselves.
Eurich, T. (2017). Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves. Crown Business.
Kruger, J., and Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and Unaware of It. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121 to 1134.

If the move you are navigating is upward

The Three Blind Spots show up in every kind of career transition. If what you are navigating is specifically a move up within your organisation, into a bigger seat, more scope, a higher level, the Leadership Altitude set reads that directly, and it is built on these same three blind spots. Three short diagnostics:

The Altitude Gap → the seat you actually lead from The Authority Read → how your authority is read by others The Letting-Go Read → what you are still gripping that keeps you a level below

When you are ready to do the work

The 90-Day Workbook.

The seven prompts here are a starting point. The full system, a 90-day workbook with 41 AI prompts across three sprints (Foundation, Activation, Momentum), the Three Blind Spots diagnostic at depth, worksheets for every workflow, and the signed Decision Document that closes the work, is How to Use AI in Your Career Transition. ₦25,000.

Explore the workbook →

Work with Dr. Betty directly

1:1 Coaching.

If you would rather work through your Blind Spot with support, Dr. Betty offers private career-transition coaching for African professional women. Email her to ask about availability and fit.

Email [email protected] →

For ongoing thinking

You’re on the list for The RISE Report™.

Dr. Betty’s weekly newsletter for African professional women navigating multicultural career environments. Original analysis on cultural intelligence, career transition patterns, and what high-performing women in this part of the world actually need to read.

Read the archive →