Often I ask leaders to consider the possibility that what’s stopping them from high performance is not that their manager won’t listen to them, or that the company has pigeonholed them, or that their current role won’t let them - although each of these factors may play some role.
They must consider the possibility that what’s stopping them is what they believe; that in effect they are stopping themselves.
Polls taken in 2001 and 2006 showed that when people were prompted with the idea of building on their strengths, and then asked to choose building on strengths and fixing weaknesses, only 41 percent of Americans chose building on their strengths as the key to success. In the UK and Canada, only 38 believed that their strengths would drive their success.
Why do we bet our success, our career and contribution on fixing weaknesses?
My theory is that over the years a majority of us have come to believe in certain assumptions that our parents told us were true, that our teachers reinforced, and that today we hear in one form or another from our managers.
There are three main incorrect assumptions: 1) As you grow, your personality changes. 2) You will grow the most in your areas of greatest weakness. 3) A good team member does whatever it takes to help the team.
In fact we are passing these on to our employees and the next generation of leaders. Maybe this is not a good thing.
What we need to be talking about is the following:
1)Values, skills, self-awareness and behaviors may change over time. But the most dominant aspects of personality remain the same.
2)We are the most inquisitive, most resilient, most creative, and most open to learning in our areas of strength.
3)A good team member is not well rounded. A good team member volunteers his strengths to the time most of the time, it’s the team that is well rounded.
Research data show that most people do not come close to making full use of their assets at work - in fact only 17 percent believe they use all of their strengths on the job.
Hopefully you will take on the challenge of changing the mindset of our future leaders, maximum success will benefit all of us.
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