HOW TO BECOME MORE EFFECTIVE AS A LEADER BY USING YOUR STRENGTHS
A key responsibility of a leader and manager is to get results through people. The more effective the leader and manager is with people, the better the results will be.
Using your strengths to improve how you lead and manage people makes more sense than trying to compensate for your weaknesses. We all have strengths and weaknesses relative to our type and personality.
The first step is to know yourself and understand your strengths and weaknesses. A strength can be effective in certain situations and become a weakness in others.
I know through self-discovery that I like to direct things and influence others. This can be a strength when providing direction, setting goals and selling my ideas to others.
But it can also be a weakness when I become too forceful and do not show openness to the other person’s point of view. I experienced this in a meeting yesterday where the financial person was against spending money on a project. The project had already been approved by the team and the president of the organization but the financial person was against it because of a lowered revenue forecast.
The financial person was simply stating what he thought and I thought he was trying to stop the project moving forward. This caused some conflict and created a tense feeling in the meeting. Later, I thought back and understood that all he was doing was stating his opinion and not trying to hold things back.
In a team environment like this when people know each other and understand the strength to person brings based on their type and personality, they can remind each other when they see the strength becoming a weakness.
In my last article and video, I talked about borrowing a trait from another type to become more balanced as a leader. So, in my example I would need to recall practicing more empathy and understanding of someone else’s opinion. This would’ve eased the conflict and avoided an argument.
Leading from strengths requires ongoing personal development and deepening our self-knowledge.
How to discover your strengths
There are many ways to discover your strengths. You can use psychometric and behavioral assessments like the ProfileXT. The book CRAZYZOO, KNOW THYSELF MADE EASY is a great way to discover your type and recognize your strengths as well as your fears.
Our fears are what turns our strengths into weaknesses. In the example I gave my fear of ineffectiveness pushed me to overuse my strength of dominance and influence. Thus, I became pushy and intolerant of the opinion of the financial person.
Become conscious
Once you know your strengths you need to be conscious of when you are using your strengths effectively and when it is becoming a weakness. When your overuse your strength, you need to borrow a quality of another type of person to be balanced and remain effective. This does take effort.
Continuous development
Leading from strengths requires ongoing personal development and deepening our self-knowledge. Using this knowledge to balance ourselves is the sign of a strong and progressive minded highly effective leader.