Leaders grow most in their areas of strength!

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"The mediocre manager believes that most things are learnable and therefore that the essence of management is to identify each person’s weaker areas and eradicate them. The great manager believes the opposite. He believes that the most influential qualities of a person are innate and therefore that the essence of management is to deploy these innate qualities as effectively as possible and so drive performance." – Marcus Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know

This is a critical skill that managers and leaders need to develop and one of the most difficult. The ability to recognise a person’s strengths, weaknesses, personality and style, then deploy them into positions that play to their unique individual qualities, makes great teams and great teams are the hallmark of successful leadership. However, before managers and leaders can recognise and leverage the strengths of others, they have to believe that:

Leaders grow most in their areas of strength!

The key challenge is our mindset. We are too often focused only on our weaknesses. In fact we are often so focused on our weaknesses we don’t consciously leverage or develop our strengths. Try this quick exercise, take a piece of paper and make a list of your top 10 weaknesses….. Now, take another piece of paper and list you top 10 strengths. How did you do? If you’re like most people, you found it more difficult to list your strengths than your weaknesses. Take some time this week to list your top 5 strengths and describe them in some detail. Looking at your strengths ask your self how does your current job, goals and vision leverage these strengths? Are you leading from your strengths?

Related posts:

1. Where’s your focus?
2. Leaders who are open to growth… tend to grow
3. How do leaders learn, develop and grow?
4. Leadership development is primarily about helping others discover themselves
5. Questions leaders ask themselves

Tagged as: Focus, Management, Success