How to Multiply the Impact of your Talent and Strength
Sometimes you feel people are the problem.
Not everyone enriches the team. Some require inordinate attention. Others never get to the point of positive contribution.
You begin to feel that people are more trouble than they are worth.
People aren’t the problem; they multiply the impact of your talent and strength.
Danger:
You might feel more effective working apart from pesky people, but self-sufficiency is self-deception.
Leadership in isolation is contradiction.
Leadership is more like basketball than weightlifting. It’s always a team sport.
Isolation inflates ego.
Connection maximizes the impact of your talent and strength.
Persistent disconnection makes you irrelevant.
Teams and relevance:
The combination of short and tall players on a basketball team make it successful. The talent of tall players has greater relevance on a team that includes short players.
Connection enhances relevance. Disconnection squanders talent and strength.
Isolation limits contribution.
Authority works from a distance but leading requires relationship.
What relationship might you strengthen today?
Contribution or criticism:
The role you play on your team depends on opportunity, talent, and strength.
Talent and strength predict contribution – only when you know how to function on a team.
Think of a basketball team again. What if the tall people criticize the short people because they don’t get rebounds?
Teams thrive when players respect and maximize each other’s contribution.
Who might you depend on today?
Strengths and contribution:
Talent is genetic.
Everyone has talent, but not everyone has strengths.
“Talents are naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied.”
Strengths are developed.
“Talents, knowledge, and skills — along with the time spent (i.e., investment) practicing, developing your skills, and building your knowledge base — combine to create your strengths.” (gallup.com)
Elevate your contribution by developing your strengths.
How might you expand someone’s relevance today?
Whose strengths might expand your relevance and contribution today?
“Authority works from a distance but leadership requires relationship”
That’s so true
Thanks Ivan.
How might you expand someone’s relevance today? Let them know opportunities exist should they have the desire, determination to move forward with their careers. Ask them were they see themselves and were they want to be? Encourage them with perhaps your own stories or others they have a common bond with. “The only one that holds us back is us”!
Whose strengths might expand your relevance and contribution today?
Each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses, going beyond ones comfort zone helps grow anyone failure is only an experience to build from. You get up and move forward!
Thanks Tim. “…. opportunities exist should they have the desire, determination to move forward with their careers.” Great point. Knowing the aspirations of a person makes a huge difference. I’ll add that helping people clarify their aspirations often propels them forward.
I truly enjoy finding ways to partner with people to showcase their strengths and passions. Everyone wants to be acknowledged for what they bring to the table.Often, that means I step back out of the spotlight. My benefit is the relationship that comes from it.
Thanks Rhonda. I want to work with you! 🙂 … What seems important is for us to realize that advancing others is good for everyone as long as those others don’t take advantage of you.
Yes, very true.
“Strengths are developed.” My challenge is dealing with some “youngins” that have the aptitude, passion and interest and some that don’t. The ones that don’t are a conundrum, a disturbance, a challenge I have not found solutions for yet! I’m leaning towards believing you have to come to the “game” with interest, with attitude and a desire to learn and grow. If you don’t come to the “game” with those attributes it is tough for someone else to develop them in you.
Thanks Roger. I’ve heard it said that you can’t coach desire. The first thing I look for in the people I work with is desire/passion. 🙂
I like the sports analogy for leadership and have always used team sports as a means to both learn from and teach about leadership. Your post helps confirm. Thanks.
Thanks Bill. The sports analogy helps me think about interdependence, maximizing diversity, and finding/giving energy. So glad you found it useful.
I’ve often heard “persistence beats talent,” but I’d never seen anything re why having a talent is not the same thing as having a strength. Excellent– thank you! 😊