I have worked for people
over the years who, with very good intentions, have pushed underlings to spend way too much time in attempts to overcome their weaknesses. Generally these
managers (note I didn't say leaders) tended to be strong in this particular
area so they saw it as an area in which everyone should be strong.
Big mistake! This
is not to say that the particular area of focus should not be valued by employees
but not something that everyone should spend an inordinate amount of time
working on.
The fortunate reality is
that we all have different areas of strength and weakness. The art of
leadership is to find complementary people and form a well rounded team.
Part of the art is to recognize the talents of each team member and focus
to make their strengths productive and their weaknesses irrelevant by
offsetting them with complementary strengths of others.
A person's weakness will
stand out especially if the boss has strength in that particular area.
Unfortunately, it is common practice for managers to focus on an
employee's weaknesses and push the employee to focus much of their effort and
energy on overcoming the weakness. Now, don't get me wrong, we should
always work on our areas of opportunity for growth. But the reality is
that if God wired us in a certain way with certain strengths, we can spend 90%
of our time focusing on improving an area of weakness and only improve by 10%.
In business we would say that is a poor ROI (return on investment).
In addition, by focusing so much attention on an area of weakness we can
become frustrated and negative if our resulting change is so minor.
Remember, you are what
you think about most of the time. If you think about your weaknesses most
of the time, you literally weaken your self esteem which will hurt your
performance.
Wouldn't it make more
sense to focus on a person's strengths and get the most from what they do well?
If a particular job requires strength in an area that is that person's Achilles
heel, don't give up on them. Consider moving them to a position that
allows their strength to benefit the team. Often a coach will move an
athlete to a new position that better uses their strength rather than working
to overcome weaknesses at his current position.
Players tend to blossom once they play to their area of strength. The
same theory holds true on a business team and it costs less to better utilize someone
within your organization than it does to bring in someone new.
In 2013, play to your
strengths and encourage others to do the same!
