The Three Competencies of Effective Leaders
Leaders need wisdom to know what to do and courage to do it.
Insight without courage ends in decay.
Courage without insight ends in catastrophe.
The third competence:
Insight and courage require competence to be useful. You may face lions with insight and courage, but if you lack competence, the result is tragic.
Application:
It takes insight and courage to overcome the negative seduction of improving people’s weaknesses. No where is this more clearly seen than in the futile exercise that organizations call annual reviews.
It’s dumb, demoralizing, and ineffective to hire for strengths and evaluate for weaknesses. Perhaps leaders should remember why they hire people in the first place – their strengths.
Effective leaders have the insight and courage to maximize strengths and compensate for weaknesses. In 1967, Peter Drucker wrote,
“The effective executive makes strengths productive. To achieve results one has to use all the available strengths — the strengths of associates, the strength of the superior, and one’s own strengths. These strengths are the true opportunities. To make strength productive is the unique purpose of the organization. It cannot overcome the weaknesses with which each of us is endowed, but it can make them irrelevant.”
Quacks:
It doesn’t matter how hard you push, train, punish or reward a duck it will only thrive when it quacks. Insightful leaders don’t punish quackers for their inability to cluck.
It takes courage to reject the negative magnetism of fixing people’s weaknesses. In addition, it’s an insult to “help” people “overcome” natural inclinations like introversion or extroversion.
Maximizing strengths takes organizations further than strengthening weaknesses.
Ultimate competence:
Leadership requires insight, courage, and competence. The ultimate competence of leadership is knowing how to “make strengths productive.”
How might leaders overcome the magnetism of fixing weaknesses?
How might leaders “make strengths productive”?
A quote from Marcus Buckingham, of my favorite study subjects {other than your writings Dan} posits “Strengths are not activities you’re good at, they’re activities that strengthen you. A strength is an activity that before you’re doing it you look forward to doing it; while you’re doing it, time goes by quickly and you can concentrate; after you’ve done it, it seems to fulfill a need of yours.” Buckingham is a favorite of mine as he very succinctly lays out the counter-intuitive idea that we need to spend more time on fixing weaknesses than on supplementing strengths where there is much more opportunity for spectacular progress with far less input.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/marcus_buckingham.html
Thanks Kelly. That’s a powerful quote that gives me hope. I wish all leaders could read and adopt these ideas. Cheers.
Dan, the relationship between strengths and weaknesses always intrigues me. We talk about them as if they are separate, finite bundles of behaviour …. do more of this, do less of that.
But what if, as Sun Tzu writes, that “what was once your strength becomes your weakness.” Is the strength vs weakness debate really symptomatic of the root cause of a lack of adaptability in both individuals and managers, and for that matter in companies?
And what if (some) weaknesses are actually overdeveloped strengths? I’ve seen employees encouraged and incentivised to be business goal focussed, and then after a while criticised for a lack of team spirit.
Thanks mwayland. I find your idea that strengths and weaknesses might be related to adaptability fascinating. Progress is about taking action, reflecting, and adapting, not brute effort.
I question the idea that strengths can be over-developed, especially if one practices adaptability. Thanks again for poking my thinking on this issue.
I think Mark Twain summed up this human condition with “I’m all for progress, it’s change I don’t like.” So maybe the challenge we have in behavioural change points to appropriate framing?
The confusion in the strengths debate is highlighted in Kelly’s post above… “strengths are not activities”… yet she/he goes on to write, “A strength is an activity ….”
I think for most workers/ employees (who don’t have these kinds of discussions we are having) strengths are things they do well, do often, and get complimented on. The paradox they experience is a manager who says “I think your focus on business goals is terrific,” so the employee ramps it up, only to be told at annual appraisal time, “you need to be more team oriented.”
So rather than an over-development of a strength maybe we’re seeing management’s inability to see people as humans rather than just as employees.
BTW I subscribe and read your posts because they/ you poke my thinking as well.
Hi mwayland, I see you point on Kelly’s post but where she placed the word “not” is the confusion. Changing the structure of her sentence means the same as strengths are activities that you are not good at. Otherwise, I agree that weaknesses and strengths can be the same but awareness is the key. For example, according to Strengthsfinders 2.0 one of my strengths is Responsibility. It is a strength of mine I see now because I take responsibility for many things that others do not want to do. On the other hand, without my awareness of taking responsibility for so many things I can over burden myself with too many things to do which then becomes a weakness. It is about framing and about awareness of what makes you tick. Socrates points out that we should “know thyself”. Reflection and some science has led me to know what I need do to more of because it is the way I am built, wired, tick, etc. and it has also lowered my blood pressure. 🙂
In the discussion of what defines a strength or a weakness, it seems to me that the quote got lost in translation. Strengths are those things (activities, processes, behaviors, etc.) which energize us, bring joy to us, and bring focus to our lives while we do or encounter them. While it may be (or seem to be) better if we are GOOD at those things, our ABILITY, APPTITUDE, PEFECTION in performing them is not what makes them a strength TO US; the doing of them STRENGTHENS US.
A weakness is then something which depletes us of joy, energy, and focus when we do or encounter it.
We all to often externalize instead of internalize strengths. While it may be that I am good at something like sales, if it depletes me and saps my joy, it probably is not a strength to me. My company would probably see it as a strength, and I get jazzed about the paycheck after-the-fact (does that mean money is a strength to me 😉 ) but sales does not STRENGTHEN me, it is a WEAKNESS to me. Not because I perform poorly at the task, but because it weakens me.
Great post! I totally agree with you there that a great leader focuses more on individuals’ strengths than weaknesses and makes the most of what each member excels at. Our team recently took the StrengthsFinder test to understand what our strengths were which was so refreshing!
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Dan, thanks for this. I agree with your thoughts regarding prioritizing strengths. As always, your posts, as well as the comments of others, give me much to think about and reflect upon. Still much to learn here. One thought, I wonder if there could also be a gender aspect to this question. As men, could it be that at times we may be more inclined to move into problem-solving mode and ‘fix’ things? (focusing on weaknesses) Many of the best women leaders I know personally tend to focus much more on maximizing strengths. Perhaps it’s just been my localized experience, but if true, for many of us, (men) recognition of this tendency could be the first step toward overcoming it.
Additionally, rather than a strength being over-developed, if adaptability is not being practiced, could it be that strengths taken for granted result in them becoming somewhat ignored over time and becoming a weaknes? Strengths remain strengths when they are continuously honed and enhanced through committed, diligent practice. The strengths of leaders open to continual learning and being critiqued and challenged by others have a greater probability of remaining effective. Many of the worlds best swords still have a dull side, which is a weakness as far as their primary function is concerned.The razor-sharp edge is the sword’s strength, and it remains that way through continuous diligent sharpening. No amount of focusing on it’s ‘weakness’ will result in greater ability to fulfill its function. Iron sharpens iron, yes, but only when it’s focused on the right thing.
Great article. Maximizing strengths takes organizations further than strengthening weaknesses. I totally agree with that!
In addition, What Leaders Need Now Is Innovation Leadership. They need it for themselves as they learn to operate in challenging, unpredictable circumstances.
I agree, Building on a Strength or a good Foundation is always easer than fixing something that’s broken.
I love your blog Dan, but this perspective always conflicts with me. Great leaders are conscious of their strengths ‘and’ their weaknesses. It’s absolutely proper to evaluate weaknesses, along with their strengths, as long as you don’t devalue the person or their strengths. Indeed, any good manager will make a person feel good about themselves and cause them to grow even when they fail or they’re weak in an area. Every duck will always quack as that’s what they are good at and designed to do. However, they’ll never have hands to eat their food either. Humans evaluate and adjust. One will never be a star NFL quarterback just by throwing the ball…he better run, think, manage, adjust, etc. Same with baseball, golf, basketball, etc. No athlete comes will all the goods. Lebron is always working on the areas he is weak. You absolutely have to evaluate weaknesses so that you can become more complete and ‘stronger’. And, it’s not about ‘overcoming’ or ‘fixing’. One may never be strong in their weakness, but they can definitely grow in that area. I prefer to hire for strengths and ‘let’s walk this path together to strengthen your weaknesses’. In the end, everyone wins.