Strengths based leadership
Boosting strengths, uniting teams, inspiring followers
Description
To become a better leader, it is crucial to first understand your strengths. Once you have identified your strengths, focus on honing them further. By continuously developing and leveraging your strengths, you can effectively shape your organization. The mark of exceptional leaders lies in their ability to leave a lasting impact on the people they influence.
When it comes to investing money, we instinctively avoid struggling funds. However, when it comes to investing our personal time, we often persist in working on our weaknesses rather than capitalizing on our strengths. It is important to recognize that great leadership begins with a deep understanding of your own strengths.
As a leader, effective communication is paramount at all levels. Encourage open dialogue and view failures as valuable learning opportunities. Adapt your leadership style to suit the unique needs of different employees. Make bold decisions even in the face of uncertainty and delegate smaller choices to reduce fatigue.
Developing strengths such as self-awareness is crucial in understanding your reactions and emotions. Continuously seek new applications for your strengths to avoid stagnation. Both leaders and employees can harness their strengths collectively to create a highly efficient and cohesive team. Instead of merely achieving basic competency, strive to strengthen your existing strengths. Explore various leadership approaches to foster self-improvement and growth.
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Table of contents
01Effective leaders continuously develop strengths
Gallup's research reveals a startling statistic - when leadership fails to focus on employees' individual strengths, only about 9% of workers become engaged. However, when leaders make it a priority to focus on employees' strengths, engagement skyrockets to almost 73%. This eightfold increase is remarkable. Focusing on employees' strengths generates substantial gains for the company's bottom line and enhances each employee's wellbeing. It's no wonder effective leaders continue investing in their own and their people's strengths.
The idealized leader excels at communication, strategic thinking, specialized skills, execution, and follow-through. But this fictional renaissance man doesn't exist. While these traits seem desirable, nobody genuinely excels at all of them. More realistically, an effective leader has world-class abilities in one or two domains and is average or slightly above in others.
Paradoxically, when leaders try becoming competent in every area, they become less effective than those who maximize their strengths. Personally, concentrating on fully utilizing your strengths is far more productive than improving your weaknesses.
This leads to two additional ideas: First, lead effectively by thoroughly understanding your strengths and spend maximum time daily applying them. Second, you can't become an effective leader by imitating others' strengths. Doing so takes you out of your element, setting you up to fail.
02Great leaders assemble skilled teams
Effective leaders understand the importance of surrounding themselves with a team that complements their strengths and compensates for their weaknesses. They recognize that rather than being well-rounded generalists, the most successful leaders excel in one or two key areas while delegating other responsibilities to those with complementary abilities.
Specifically, effective leadership teams tend to have collective strengths across four domains: executing, influencing, relationship-building, and strategic thinking. The executing leaders focus on implementing ideas and getting things done. The influencing leaders rally support and build consensus. The relationship builders strengthen interpersonal bonds and bring cohesion. And the strategic thinkers analyze information to chart the future course.
Savvy leaders first identify their own innate capabilities and inclinations. They then deliberately seek out team members with offsetting strengths to create a balanced and multifaceted leadership group. Technical skills matter as well, but the emphasis is on assembling a team with the right blend of complementary talents. This understanding of individual strengths allows the leader to then effectively harness the collective potential of the team.
Rather than teams coming together by happenstance, an intentional strengths-based approach to leadership allows for far greater synergy and performance. Leaders who understand their own and others' capabilities can assign responsibilities accordingly, motivate appropriately, and ultimately achieve more.
Executing – they know how to make the right things happen.
- Individuals with the Achiever theme have great stamina and work ethic. They derive satisfaction from staying busy and being productive. To lead Achievers, provide them with important projects and establish metrics to track progress. Give them stretch goals periodically to keep them challenged. Allow them to set their own work hours since they enjoy working. Build trust by working alongside them. Surround them with other hard workers to keep the momentum going.
- Those with the Arranger theme enjoy organization, but even more so figuring out how things interconnect. To lead Arrangers, give them new challenges regularly and consider them for management roles. Allow them to establish work systems and routines. Surround them with honest people and use calendars to account for time.
- People with strong Belief have unwavering core values and a well-defined sense of purpose in their careers. To lead them, align with their values and show how your products or services fit their purpose. Exemplify your values, provide opportunities to serve, and allow them to advocate for causes they believe in. Have sound ethics and clearly communicate requirements.
- Individuals who value Consistency need to treat everyone respectfully and fairly. To lead them, establish consistent practices and routines. Have procedures in place and give them input into your systems. Be even-handed with no favorites. Set a good example at all times and clearly articulate expectations.
03Effective leaders comprehend follower needs
People follow leaders for only four reasons:
1. They trust that leader to do the right thing at all times. 2. They believe the leader genuinely cares about the rank-and-file employees. 3. They consider the leader is stable and can be counted on in times of need. 4. They have confidence in the leader because he or she makes them feel enthusiastic about the future.
Great leaders understand their people and intuitively provide them with just what they need to perform to the best of their abilities. If you genuinely want people to follow you, you need to have in mind at all times what any followers need to get from you:
1. Trust – Followers will not tolerate dishonesty in any way, shape or form. They need to feel confident they can trust you to act consistently regardless of the circumstances or situation. If you’re not honest at all times, there will be no trust and no respect. Trust significantly increases speed and efficiency in the workplace. Don’t waste time telling someone you can be trusted – show them.
2. Compassion – You have to prove to followers you care about them and have their best interests at heart. If you do that, your people will become far more engaged and productive. It may not be feasible to build a personal relationship with each of your followers but if you can show them you have a heart, your followers will like you better.
3. Stability – You must have a solid, unchangeable foundation. You need your followers to feel like they can rely on you at all times and under all circumstances. This is especially important during times of rapid change. The more stability you exhibit, the stronger your foundation appears to followers and the more anxious they are to get on the bandwagon.
4. Hope – Everyone wants to feel enthusiastic about the future. That’s the way humans are wired. If you want to be an effective leader, you must instill hope in them that a bright future lies ahead. Great leaders respond to challenges, solve problems, remove barriers and create impressive options for the future. If you want people to follow you, fill them with hope that is realistic and inspiring.
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