Leadership is a complex and dynamic skill that requires constant learning and improvement. As a leader, you have the potential to inspire, motivate, and influence others, but you also face challenges, risks, and pitfalls. How can you develop your strengths and overcome your weaknesses as a leader? Here are some tips to help you grow and excel in your leadership role.
The first step to developing your strengths and overcoming your weaknesses is to assess yourself honestly and objectively. You can use various tools and methods to identify your leadership style, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. For example, you can take a self-assessment quiz, ask for feedback from others, or use a SWOT analysis. The goal is to gain a clear and realistic picture of your current leadership performance and potential.
Ask for feedback! If you have helped a team to feel physiologically safe, they will be happy to give their feedback readily, both constructive and developmental.
Diagnostic assessments can be incredibly valuable to help provide a snapshot of current leadership performance, it takes courage to look at ourselves objectively, and support to work through this. The diagnostic is the beginning, the next step is to commit to doing the work to know ourselves. ‘ Know thyself’ Plato, is wisdom that holds relevance through the ages to modern day. Without the courage and honesty to truly get to know who we are, it’s not possible to understand, know or lead others effectively. This is the work, worthy work that elevates the leadership potential of all.
The Cliftons Strengths finder has been a valuable tool that I have used to identify my strengths and ensure that I am spending the majority of my time harnessing these.
Getting sincere and precise feedback is such a gift. I am still working on how i can get more of it. At times, I learnt from others... to be in that candid state where information could flow in, including criticisms and positive acknowledgements. At times I managed to welcome both without trying to move away too quickly from what it activated inside myself.
Know that - you may be capable of doing everything, you do not have to do everything. As a leader it is important to know where you need to focus on and where can you get support from others. Leverage the strengths and find people with complementary skills that are weaknesses of the leader. Also using the skill will matrix, and identifying the quadrants for each competency and skills required can help to figure what can a leader use to deliver maximum impact, what are the areas where they need to take support and areas where one doesn't need to work and can delegate it to this who are most competent to do it.
Once you have assessed yourself, you can focus on your strengths and leverage them to achieve your goals and objectives. Your strengths are the areas where you excel, where you feel confident and energized, and where you can add value and make a difference. You can develop your strengths by applying them to new situations, challenges, and opportunities, by seeking mentorship and guidance from other leaders who share your strengths, and by celebrating and rewarding your achievements.
I do believe that enthusiasm is pure and sincere as it originates from the Heart. Emotional Intelligence is more powerful than Mental Intelligence but indeed has to be managed and presented in an "intelligible" form. I do work a lot on deep insights gathered from inspiration that I struggle to present into key principles that can be demonstrated into a sort of universal reality that everybody can relate to. Then it becomes a common denominator/yardstick that can help the audience understand since they would have lived through it themselves - and hence identify themselves spontaneously to it. If enthusiasm is an energy that can be used to carry a message to the hearts of the audience, we may not necessarity have to curb it.
I noted that one of my strengths, specifically enthusiasm, could be quite overwhelming to others at times. It did not always allow for space to argue, challenge, get deep understanding or disagree. The thing is that it is like a contagion and can be triggered unintentionally. What i noticed is that at times, as i became aware of the birth of enthusiasm, and in a situation that would embrace it, I would let it take over... but to some degree only.
While focusing on your strengths, you should also address your weaknesses and minimize their impact on your leadership effectiveness. Your weaknesses are the areas where you struggle, where you feel insecure and frustrated, and where you may need improvement or support. You can address your weaknesses by acknowledging them, by seeking feedback and advice from others, by learning new skills and knowledge, and by delegating or outsourcing tasks that are not your forte.
One area where i struggle is the urge to share. When I get a new understanding of things, I tend to share it to others. Eager to help, or to bring 'my' newly acquired knowledge to someone else, or more profoundly, eager to bring a positive contribution to the world. But sometimes it is too much. Unfortunately, it is by sharing to others that I learnt that in some circumstances, i should allow time to them. There have been collateral damages in confidence level and trust both sides. But maybe i should call it 'temporary but justified adjustments'. So, my main learning now is to adapt, adjust, be more careful, but stay determined and keep faith in the fact that the ones to whom i share, will understand really why.
At senior management level it's better to (re)design a job around a person, not try to fit the person into the job. Why? 1. Most Snr Mngt jobs are shaped by the person in them, so you end up looking for a clone of the person when they leave, which you're unlikely to find. 2. It's much easier and faster to redesign a job requirement than develop the required level of proficiency in a skill or behavior. 3. No one is equally good at everything, you should be looking for people with exceptional skills and competencies when appointing a senior manager. Exceptional at some things means "good enough" is OK in others. 4. Build a team with complementary skills, it avoids the team leader having to be a "superhero" and promotes collaboration.
This might be a weakness or it might be an instantaneous oversight - ask people around you this question: “what am I/are we missing?” This might reveal a personal or collective blind spot. A blind spot by definition is something you can’t see so you will need trusted people to tell you what they can see that you can’t. But trusted does not mean people who like you, sometimes the biggest blind spots can only be revealed by people who have no vested interest in you.
While it's good to focus on your strengths as a leader, it's also expedient to study and make a resolution with your areas of weaknesses. One weakness within your personality can be the razor that cuts open your fantastic reputation and renders your services and sacrifices futile.
Another key to developing your strengths and overcoming your weaknesses is to seek feedback and support from others. Feedback is essential for learning and improvement, as it helps you identify your gaps, blind spots, and areas of improvement. You can seek feedback from your peers, subordinates, superiors, clients, or mentors, and use it to adjust your actions and behaviors accordingly. Support is also vital for growth and development, as it helps you overcome challenges, cope with stress, and access resources and opportunities. You can seek support from your network, colleagues, friends, family, or coach, and use it to enhance your confidence and resilience.
Leaders can leverage strengths by honing their skills through continuous learning and seeking mentorship. To address weaknesses, they should acknowledge them, seek feedback, and develop targeted improvement plans. Above all embracing a growth mindset is key.
Primeiramente é de suma importancia investir no autoconhecimento de forma ampla e profunda. Se ater somente a testes e inventários n?o é suficiente. é importante que escolha pessoas que confie e acredite para lhe fornecer feedback e suporte: 1. Fa?a uma lista das competencias que acredita ter e aquelas que imagine que n?o estejam t?o desenvolvidas ainda; 2. Descreva situa??es que viveu onde estas competencias apareceram; 3. Escolha pessoas que confie (coach ou amigo ou colega de faculdade) e discuta com elas estas situa??es e competencias; 4. Escute o que eles tem a lhe dizer e anote; 5. Analise e estude o que elas lhe disseram; 6. Volte a falar com elas e exponha suas coloca??es e formas de superar o que acredita que precisa melhorar.
Finally, to develop your strengths and overcome your weaknesses, you need to set goals and track your progress. Goals are the specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound outcomes that you want to achieve as a leader. They help you focus your efforts, prioritize your tasks, and measure your results. You can set goals for your personal and professional development, such as improving a skill, acquiring a certification, or leading a project. You can track your progress by using indicators, metrics, or benchmarks that show how far you have come and how much you have improved.
It is very relevant for the search for goals that are reasonable and ambitious, the habit of a very powerful tool: the daily briefing. In a simple, daily, executive and transformative way, we establish a routine of constant accountability. We can establish/reorient goal achievement milestones and also track their progress. Combining this tool with debriefing, at the end of each week, gives us a definitive boost to our own performance and our teams. It is crucial to understand these routines as the initial and final part of the process: briefing-tasks-execution-debriefing, which together show us the complete cycle of high-performance work.
Check and recheck your own conclusions and judgments about you and others. .
It is always useful to be intentional in the application of your strengths to your leadership role. It is in the application that most development occurs. This requires a deep understanding of your strengths and the requirements of leadership, best facilitated in conversation with your coach.
Ontwikkel als leider je eigen visie op leiderschap. Dit is voor veel leiders een pittige klus: wat doet er in jouw ogen werkelijk toe als het om leiderschap gaat? Een visie ontwikkelen vraagt om onderscheid te kunnen maken tussen jouzelf en de ander. Om duidelijk te hebben waar je de aanpassing in gaat, en waar jouw eigenheid de ruimte krijgt. Het ontwikkelen van een visie vormt in die zin een parallel proces met het leiderschap an sich. Geen gemakkelijke opdracht, wel een noodzakelijke aangezien met de rol van de leider ook een verantwoordelijkheid komt kijken. Een visie schept kaders waar je vervolgens naar kunt leven.
Actually as a leader we should also be in a position to reflect on our weaknesses and see how to transform them into a strength. Through a SWOT analysis, it will give a clear picture of both elements and in return will help the leader to determine the opportunities and threats.
One more thing to consider is that strengths and weaknesses are sometimes contextual. In some contexts, your strengths might be weaknesses and vice versa. Let’s say you don’t generally excel at paying attention to details, and you excel at big-picture thinking. If your current environment (job or other life areas) requires high attention to detail and accuracy is critical, then this will be a weakness you might want to address. And if you change your circumstances to start leveraging your ability to think of the big picture and come up with new concepts and strategies, improving your attention to detail might not be as urgent. Context matters.