Anyone who has ever driven a car knows blind spots are potentially lethal. This holds true in leading business organizations as well as on the road. Are you aware of your strengths and how to use them to your advantage without overusing them?
For the last decade or so, leaders have been encouraged to focus on developing their strengths rather than gravitating to working on their weaknesses. We’ve all heard “Play to your strengths.” Conventional wisdom in leadership says to capitalize on your strengths. Taken too far, your strengths can become your weaknesses.
You may already know your strengths and possibly all of your weaknesses. Are you using your strengths to your advantage? There are times that when it comes to using your strengths, too much of a good thing may not be a good thing after all. Your flaws are often the mirror-image of your strengths.
There’s such a thing as relying too much on strength. Don’t be satisfied with the strengths you’ve always had. Keep expanding your horizons. Sometimes you can do that with your selection of team members, but also look for opportunities to grow your own abilities. Many leaders underestimate their strengths, and as a result are unaware that they are overdoing it. It is hard to spot strengths you are overdoing.
Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence, lists several blind spots from 42 successful executives studied by Robert E. Kaplan, who let us know about overusing your strengths can turn into your weaknesses. This list includes the following:
• Blind Ambition- Winning at all costs
• Unrealistic Goals- Setting overly ambitious, unattainable goals for your group or organization
• Relentless Striving- Compulsively hardworking at the expense of all else
• Drives Others- Pushes other people too hard, and burning them out
• Power Hungry- Seeks power for their own interests, rather than the organization’s
• Insatiable need for recognition- Addicted to glory; takes credit for others’ efforts and puts the blame on them for mistakes
• Preoccupation with Appearances- Needs to look good at all costs
• Need to seem Perfect- Engaged by or rejects criticism, even if realistic
Realize that hidden in your weaknesses are your strengths and that each of your strengths has a corresponding weakness.
When it comes to making major mistakes, it is not your weaknesses that get you in trouble, it is your strengths.
Most people ignore their weaknesses when they focus on their strengths. Zenger and Folkman call serious weaknesses as “fatal flaws”.
No matter how hard you work on certain weaknesses, chances are you’ll make only marginal progress. Do not waste too much time overcoming your flaws. It is better to focus on what you do best and surround yourself with people who have complementary strengths.
Strengths in combination are far more powerful than any one alone.
People can and do behave inappropriately and they do things to excess.
Most people ignore their weaknesses when they focus on their strengths.
Thirty-three percent of 700 leaders admitted that they blamed other people for their own mistakes.
Constantly ask questions on how you can get better as a leader. Be open and challenge others to tell they think you want to hear, but to be honest in telling you how things really are. Feedback on leadership positives, and not just the negatives, will help leaders become more aware of the impact of their strengths.
Write out your list of strengths. Identify how your strengths would look in its healthy and overused levels. Then determine at what point you are using each of your strengths the best way you can without overusing them.
Identify 3-5 ways you pay too much attention on getting short-term results, & doesn’t pay enough on strategy. Essentially, turn the dial down on the overuse side & turn it up on the underuse side- as Robert E. Kaplan states.
Go beyond the basics and don’t sugar-coat what you really want others to tell you. Those leaders who have “YES” men and women around them are not going to understand what is really going on with the organization or with them. This is the only way to find out and realize the blind spots, fatal flaws, habits and weaknesses you have. If you don’t accept true feedback from others, you most likely are on the edge of where your leadership ends.
“Unless you’re willing to let go of yourself as you currently are,
you cannot become the great leader you expect to be.”
