The Weakness Advantage
Weakness is an asset.
You’re disqualified from leadership if you don’t have weaknesses.
Don’t wait until you have it all together to lead. Make the most of frailties.
Weakness…
#1. Expands thinking.
Frailties enable you to think deeply about yourself and broadly about others. What do you learn about yourself? How do your shortcomings make space for the strength of others?
Your gaps are where your team’s strengths fit. When you reject help, you tell others they don’t matter.
#2. Extends impact.
Receive help to multiply your impact. Leaders who reject help limit their potential.
#3. Creates opportunity.
Serve with frailties. Your struggle is your laboratory.
You feel energy and ownership for the solutions that most help you.
The most powerful solutions you bring are the ones you find for yourself.
#4. Enlarges empathy.
Those who embrace their own frailties understand the frailties of others. The alternative is a hard heart. Those, for example, who grapple with cancer, feel empathy for others fighting cancer.
#5. Reduces arrogance.
Bullies have blind spots. But scars are bridges.
Pretending you’re strong where you’re weak limits potential, elevates stress, and hinders relationships.
At your next meeting, lead with a problem you haven’t solved yet.
A Rule of Engagement:
Don’t make excuses based on shortcomings.
Own flaws but never use them as a crutch.
Successful leaders compensate for frailties. Failures make excuses.
Don’t be less strong because you don’t have it all together. Competencies create success. But the path to successful leadership includes defining, embracing, and feeling the discomfort of weakness.
How might weaknesses make leaders better?
Image source: Kintsugi Pottery Bowl.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
The advice about leading a meeting with a problem you haven’t solved reminds me of the discussion about “big rocks and little rocks”. We need to focus on the larger issues to reinforce their importance in the same way we should lead with those issues that we need to solve. Leading like this exposes a weakness that you haven’t been able to solve yet instills confidence in others as they seek to help you solve a problem. An individual’s weakness turns into the strength of the team. Thank you and have a great day Dan.
The nugget I take is, “Exposing weakness instills confidence in others.” Only a blind leader wants insecure people.
This is so true….in marriage. In a solid marriage partners cover the weaknesses of the other. And happy is the couple who can rely on the other without fear. If married, make it easy for your spouse to keep his/her vows. Such a partnership will extend your reach in ways you can’t even imagine!
Wonderful illustration. I know it’s true in my marriage. Thankfully!