In the mid-1970s, I attended a conference where Lee Roberson was a speaker. He made a statement during a session that inspired me and changed my life. Roberson said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” By that he meant that leaders inevitably make things better or worse for people who follow them. Wherever you have a good leader, the team better, the organization gets better, the department or division gets better. And wherever you have a bad leader, everyone that leader impacts has tougher time. Leadership makes every endeavor either better or worse.
The moment I heard that statement. I understood intuitively that it was true. That statement soon became my theme. It has been a major inspiration and motivation for me for more than thirty years. It has been the foundation of the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, including the law of the lid, which states, Leadership ability determines a person’s level of effectiveness.” And it has influenced how I see everything that happens around me.
The Leader is Responsible
The more you understand leadership, the more you see how leaders impact things around them. A few years after 1 heard Roberson speak, along with millions of other Americans I watched Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan debate prior to the 1980 presidential election. Most people agreed that the debate turned on a question that Reagan asked the American people. He said,
Next Tuesday is Election Day. Next Tuesday all of you will go to the polls and stand there in the polling place and make a decision. I think when you make that decision it might be well if you would ask yourself, “Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go buy things in the store than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago?” If you answer all those questions yes, why, then I think your choice is very obvious as to who you’ll vote for. If you don’t agree, if you don’t think that this course that we’ve been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four, then I could suggest another choice that you have.
Why would that question—”Are you better off than you were four years ago?”—have such an impact? Because people understood that their current condition was the result of who their leader was. They didn’t like their condition, so they changed leaders. It’s what got Reagan elected. And it’s why I say that to see how the leader is doing, all you have to do is look at the people. As leadership expert Max Depree says, “The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers.”
People often attribute the success of organizations and teams to many things: opportunities, the economy, personnel, teamwork, resources, timing, chemistry, luck. And while it’s true that any of those things can come into play, the one thing all good organizations have in common is good leadership.
Have you noticed that whenever you go to a new doctor, you have to fill out forms and answer a bunch of questions? Although they may seem trivial or irrelevant, the most important questions are those dealing with your family history. Why? Your physical health is greatly determined by your parents’ physical health. If one of your parents has heart disease, diabetes, or cancer, there is a high likelihood that you will someday have it too. Your health has been passed down to you.
Leadership works in a similar way. When leaders are healthy, the people they lead tend to be healthy. When leaders are unhealthy, so are their followers. People may teach what they know, but they reproduce what they are.
Recently I spoke at a conference with Larry Bossidy, the former CEO of Allied Signal arid author of Execution. He touched on this dynamic between leaders and followers, and spoke about the important role leaders have with their people. He said,
The development of new leaders is not only the key to profitability, it is also very satisfying in terms of feeling like you’ve left a legacy, not just an income statement. The question is often asked, How am I doing as a leader?” The answer is how the people you lead are doing. Do they learnt? Do they manage conflict? Do they initiate changes? You won’t remember when you retire what you did the first quarter of 1994. What you will remember, is how many people you developed.
The best leaders are highly intentional about developing their people. But good or bad, leaders always impact their people. And if you want to know whether a leader is successful and effective, don’t look at—or listen to—the leader. Simply look at the people.
Revealing Questions to Ask About Followers
Earl Weaver, the former manager of the Baltimore Orioles, was known for continually baiting and arguing with umpires. One of the standard questions he asked of umpires in the first few innings of a game was, “Is it going to get any better, or is this as good as it’s going to get?” That’s a question every leader should ask himself. Why? Because the performance of the leader will greatly impact the performance of the team.
If you want to know how you’re doing as a leader (or if you want to analyze the leadership of someone else in your organization), do it by asking the following four questions:
Question #1: Are the people following?
All leaders have two common characteristics: first, they are going somewhere; second, they are able to persuade other people to go with them. In a very practical sense, the second characteristic is what separates the real leaders from the pretenders. If someone with a leadership position has no followers, then that person has a position but isn’t really a leader. There is no such thing as a leader without followers!
It’s important to note that having followers doesn’t necessarily make individuals good leaders; it just makes them leaders. Pastor Stuart Briscoe tells the story of a young colleague who was officiating at the funeral of a war veteran. The dead man’s military friends wanted to have some role in the service at the funeral home, so they requested that the pastor lead them down to the casket, stand with them for a solemn moment of remembrance, and then lead them out through the side door.
The young pastor did exactly that. There was only one problem: he picked the wrong door. With military precision, he marched the men into a broom closet. The whole group then had to beat a hasty, confused retreat, in full view of the mourners.
When a leader knows where he is going and the people know that the leader knows where he is going, they begin to develop a healthy trust. This relationship of trust will grow as the leader demonstrates continuing competence. Every time a good leader makes the right moves with the right motives, the relationship strengthens and the team gets better.
Clarence Francis, who led the General Foods corporation in the 1930s and ‘40s, asserted, “You can buy a man’s time; you can buy his physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of his skilled muscular motions per hour. But you can not buy enthusiasm…you can not buy loyalty…you can not buy the devotion of hearts, minds or souls. You must earn these.”
As a leader, you should never expect the loyalty of others before you have built a relationship and earned trust. Demanding it up front seldom works. The loyalty of followers comes as a reward to the leader who earns it, not the one who yearns for it. The followership of the people is based not on position but on performance and motives. Successful leaders put the good of their people first. When they do this, they earn the respect of the people and their following grows. And when a leader performs first, the loyalty that follows often has no limits.
Question #2: Are the people changing?
The second question that must he asked about the people in order to know how the leader is doing has to do with whether the people are willing to make changes for the sake of progress. Progress does not occur without change. President Harry S. Truman commented, “Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.”
Leaders are able to seize opportunities only when their people are willing to change. Much of leadership is cultivating in people a willingness to follow a leader into the unknown based on the promise of something great. That cannot occur without change. Ironically, leaders don’t change people. Rather, they are agents of change. They help to create an environment that is conducive for people to make the decision to change.
How do they do this? First, they inspire others. All good leaders inspire their followers to have confidence in them. But great leaders inspire their followers to have confidence in themselves. This self-confidence lifts their morale and gives them the energy to make the kinds of changes that will take them forward and will better their lives.
The other thing effective leaders do to promote change is create an environment of expectation. Jimmy Johnson, who couched the University of Miami to a national championship and the Dallas Cowboys to two Super Bowl victories, explained the importance of creating the right environment:
My role as a head coach was to do three things: One, bring in people who are committed to being the very best; two, eliminate people who are not committed to being the very best; and three, the most important of my responsibilities, create an atmosphere where they could achieve their goals and the goals we set for our team. I wanted to put them in the right environment and delegate the responsibility so they could be the best they could be.
People will become their best only if they are changing. And they are unlikely to change unless an effective leader is present to help facilitate the process.
Question #3: Are the people growing?
Willingness to change on the part of the people can help an organization to improve, but for an organization to reach its highest potential, the people need to be willing to do more than just change. They need to keep growing.
Author Dale Galloway says, “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of a leader.” I couldn’t agree more. There is a lot of talk in the business community about finding and recruiting good people, and I acknowledge that it is important. But even if you find the best people you can, if you don’t develop them, your competitor who is developing its people will soon pass you by.
The responsibility of developing people falls on the leader. And that means more than
just helping people to acquire job skills. The best leaders help people with more than their jobs they help them with their lives. They help them to become better people, not just better workers. They enlarge them. And that has great power because growing people create growing organizations.
Walter Bruckart, former vice president of Circuit City, remarked that the top five factors of excellence in an organization are people, people, people, people, and people. I believe that is true, but only if you are helping those people to grow and reach their potential. And that’s not always easy for a leader. It can exact a high price. As a leader, my success in developing others will depend upon the following:
• My high valuation of people—this is an attitude issue.
• My high commitment to people—this is a time issue.
• My high integrity with people—this is a character issue.
• My high standard for people—this is a goal-setting issue.
• My high influence over people—this is a leadership issue.
Those core principles for people development are underlined by a leader’s belief in the people. If leaders don’t believe in their people, their people won’t believe in themselves. And if they don’t believe in themselves, they won’t grow. That may sound like a heavy weight of responsibility on a leader, but that’s just the way it is. If the people aren’t growing, it’s a reflection on the leader.
Question #4: Are the people succeeding?
Basketball coach Pat Riley, who has led two different teams to NBA championships, comments, “I think the ways a leader can measure whether or not he or she is doing a good job is (1) through wins or losses, (2) through the bottom line, (3) through the subjective and objective visual analysis of how individuals are improving and growing. If individuals are getting better results, I think the whole product is improving.” The bottom line in leadership is always results. Leaders may impress others when they succeed, but they impact others when their followers succeed. If a team, department, or organization isn’t being successful, the responsibility ultimately falls on the leader.
It’s been my experience that successful people who are not naturally gifted in leadership sometimes have a difficult time transitioning from achiever to leader. They are used to performing at a high level—doing tasks with excellence, reaching their goals, achieving financially—and they judge their progress by those things. When they become leaders, they often expect everyone else to do the same, to be self-motivated. And when the people they lead don’t perform as expected, they ask, “What’s wrong with them?”
Leaders think differently. They understand that they have a role in their followers’ achievement and that their personal success as leaders is measured by the performance of their people. If they look at the people and see that they aren’t following, changing, growing, and succeeding, they ask, “What’s wrong with me?” and “What can I do differently to help the team win?”
I love helping other people to succeed because I find it highly rewarding. Recently I received a note from Dale Bronner, a gifted leader that I mentor. In it he said,
John, you have added value to me by exposing me to things I have not experienced, equipping me with resources to expand my mind, teaching me principles which serve as guardrails for my life and providing me an avenue through which I can be accountable in a mentoring relationship. John, you have provided something for my head, my heart and my hands which all make me a more valuable person to serve others.
That’s the reason I lead and mentor others.
Leadership is meant to lift up others. Peter Drucker observes, “Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations.” In other words, what he was saying is, “To see how a leader is doing, look at the people.” That’s the way your people measure you. How do you measure yourself?
Application Exercises
1. Are your people following you? Let’s start at the beginning. The answers to any other leadership questions won’t matter if your answer to this one is no. When you lead, do your people follow? When you have an idea, do your people buy in? If you want your team to take risks or step up to a higher level of performance, do team members respond positively? If you’re not sure, try this: make a request (an appropriate one) that is outside of the authority of your leadership position. If your people won’t do it, then you aren’t really leading. You need to establish relationships with them and develop trust through an extended demonstration of character and competence. Get started.
2. How do you keep score? When you measure your success, do you think in terms of your personal effectiveness or your team’s? If you’re not sure, take a look at your annual goals, your weekly or monthly objectives, and your daily to-do list. What percentage is focused on individual achievements? What percentage is on corporate or team achievements? If your goals are primarily individual, then you have not made the shift from achiever to leader. Recast your goals and objectives on every level to reflect broader goals where your people will change, grow, and achieve success.
3. Do you believe in your people? You will not develop people if you do not believe in them. Take a look at the principles for people development and rate yourself for each item on a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high):
• High valuation of people—this is an attitude issue.
• High commitment to people—this is a time issue.
• High integrity with people—this is a character issue.
• High standard for people—this is a goal-setting issue.
• High influence over people—this is a leadership issue.
For any principle a score lower than an 8, write out a plan to correct the issue (attitude, time, character, goals, or leadership).
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 02, 2009
Get In the Zone and Stay There
Can you remember the first lesson you ever learned about leadership? I can. It came from my dad. He used to tell my brother, my sister, and me, “Find out what you do well and keep on doing it.” That wasn’t just casual advice. He and my mother made it their mission to help us discover our strengths and start developing them before we were old enough to leave home and go out on our own.
Dad also reinforced that advice by living it. One of his favorite sayings was “This one thing I do.” He had an uncanny ability to remain focused within his areas of strength. That, coupled with his determination to finish what he started, served him well throughout his career and beyond. He stays in his strength zone. It is one of the reasons he has always been the greatest inspiration for my life.
Searching For Strengths
When I started my career, I was committed to finding my strength zone and working to stay in it. However, I was frustrated for my first few years working. Like many inexperienced leaders. I tried to do many different things to discover what I really could do well. In addition, people’s expectations for what I would do and how I would lead did not always match my strengths. My responsibilities and obligations sometimes required that I perform tasks for which I possessed neither talent nor skill. I was often ineffective as a result. It took me several years to sort all this out, find my strength zone, and recruit and develop other people to compensate for my weaknesses.
If you are a voting leader and you are still uncertain about where your strengths lie, don’t get discouraged. Be patient and keep working it out. Here’s what I know: no matter if you’re just starting out or if you are at the peak of your career, the more you work in your strength zone, the more successful you will be.
Defining Personal Success
I’ve heard many definitions of success from many people over the years. In fact, I’ve embraced different definitions myself at different stages of my life. But in the last fifteen years, I have zeroed in on a definition that I think captures success no matter who people are or what they want to do.
I believe success is
Knowing your purpose in life,
Growing to your maximum potential, and
Sowing seeds that benefit others.
If you are to do those three things, you are successful. However, none of them is possible unless you find and stay in your strength zone.
I love the story of a group of neighborhood boys who built a tree house and formed their own club when the grown-ups were told who had been selected for which office, they were astonished to hear that a four- year- old had been elected president
“That boy must be a born leader,” one dad observed. “How did it happen that all you bigger boys voted for him?”
“Well, you see, Dad.” his son replied, “he can’t very well be secretary because he doesn’t know how to read or write. He couldn’t be treasurer, because he can’t count. He would never do for sergeant at arms because he’s too little to throw anybody out. If we didn’t choose him for anything, he’d feel bad. So we made him president.”
Real life, of course, doesn’t work that way. You don’t become an effective leader by default. You must be intentional. And you must work from your strengths.
Whenever I mentor people and help them discover their purpose, I always encourage them to start the process by discovering their strengths, not exploring their shortcomings. Why? Because people’s purpose in life is always connected to their giftedness. It always works that Way. You are not called to do some thing that you have no talent for. You will discover your purpose by finding and remaining in your strength zone.
Similarly, you cannot grow to your maximum potential if you continually work outside of your strength zone. Improvement is always related to ability. The greater your natural ability, the greater your potential for Improvement. I’ve known people who thought that reaching their potential would come from shoring up their weaknesses. But do you know what happens when you spend all your time working on your weaknesses and never developing your strengths? If you work really hard, you might claw your way all the way up to mediocrity! But you’ll never get beyond it. Nobody admires or rewards mediocrity.
The final piece of the puzzle—living a life that benefits others—always depends upon us giving our best, not our worst. You can’t change the world by giving only leftovers or by performing with mediocrity. Only your best will add value to others and lift them up.
Finding Your Own Strength Zone
British poet and lexicographer Samuel Johnson said, “Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess.” If you have an image in your mind of what talents people are supposed to have, yet your do not possess them, then you will have a difficult time finding your true strengths. You need to discover and develop who you are. Here are a few suggestions to help you:
1. Ask, “What Am I Doing Well?”
Develop who reach their potential spend less time asking, “What am I doing right?” and more time asking “What am I doing well?” The first is a moral question; the second is a talent question. You should always strive to do what’s right. But doing what’s right doesn’t tell you anything about your talent.
2. Get Specific
When we consider our strengths, we tend to think too broadly. Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, writes, “The great mystery isn’t that people do things badly but that they occasionally do a few things well. The only thing that is universal is incompetence. Strength is always specific! Nobody ever commented, for example, that the great violinist Jascha Heifetz probably couldn’t play the trumpet well.” The more specific you can get about your strengths, the better the chance you can find your “sweet spot.” Why be on the fringes of your strength zone when you have a chance to be right in the center?
3. Listen for What Others Praise
Many times we take our talents for granted. We think because we can do something well, anyone can. Often that’s not true. How can you tell when you’re overlooking a skill or talent? Listen to what others say. Your strengths will capture the attention of others and draw them to you. On the other hand, when you’re working in areas of weakness, few people will show interest. If others are continually praising you in a particular area, start developing it.
4. Check Out the Competition
You don’t want to spend all your time comparing yourself to others; that’s not healthy. But you don’t want to waste your time doing something that others do much better. Former GE CEO Jack Welch asserts, “If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.” People don’t pay for average. If you don’t have the talent to do something better than the competition, place your focus elsewhere.
To get a better picture of where you stand in relationship to the competition, ask yourself the following questions:
• Are others doing what I am doing?
• Are they doing it well?
• Are they doing at better than I am?
• Can I become better than they are?
• If I do become better, what will be the result?
• If I don’t become better, what will be the result?
The answer to the last question is: you lose. Why? Because your competition is working in their strength zone and you aren’t!
Former all-star baseball catcher Jim Sundberg advised, “Discover your uniqueness, then discipline yourself to develop it.” That’s what I’ve tried to do. Many years ago I realized that one of my strengths was communicating. People have always been motivated when they hear me speak. After a while, many opportunities were given to me to speak at events with other motivational speaker. At first it was very intimidating because they were so good. But as I listened to them, the thing I kept asking myself was, “What can I do that will set me apart from them?” I felt it might not be possible for me to be better than they were, but it would be possible for me to be different. Over time I discovered and developed that difference. I would strive to be a motivational teacher, not just a motivation speaker. I wanted people not only to enjoy what I shared but to also be able to apply what I taught to their lives. For more than two decades, I have disciplined my life to develop that uniqueness. It’s my niche—my strength zone.
To Be a Successful Leader, Find and Develop the Strength Zones of Your People
Whenever you see people who are successful in their work, you can rest assured that they are working in their strength zone. But that’s not enough if you want to be successful as a leader. Good leaders help others find their strength zones and empower them to work in them. In fact, the best leaders are characterized by the ability to recognize the special abilities and limitations of others, and the capacity to fit their people into the jobs where they will do best.
Sadly, most people are not working in their areas of strength and therefore not reaching their potential. The Gallup organization conducted research on 1.7 million people in the workplace. According to their findings, only 20 percent of employees feel that their strengths are in play every day in the work setting. In my opinion, that is largely the fault of their leaders. They have failed to help their people find their strengths and place them in the organization where their strengths can be an asset to the company.
In her book Hesselbein on Leadership, Frances Hesselbein, the chairman of the board of governors of the Leader to Leader Institute founded by Peter F. Drucker, writes, “Peter Drucker reminds us that organizations exist to make people’s strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant. And this is the work of effective leaders. Drucker also tells us that there may be born leaders but there are far too few to depend on them.”
If you desire to be an effective leader, you must develop the ability to develop people in their areas of strength. How do you do that?
Study and know the people on your team.
What are your people’s strengths and weaknesses? Whom do they relate to on the team? Are they growing and do they have more growth potential in the area in which they’re working? Is their attitude an asset or a Liability? Do they love what they do and are they doing it well? These are questions that must be answered by the leader.
Communicate to individuals how they fit on the team.
What are the strengths that they bring to the table? Are there times their contribution will be especially valuable? How do they complement the other members of the team? What do they need from the other players that will complement their weaknesses? The more that people know how they fit on a team, the more they will desire to properly make the most of their fit and maximize their contribution.
Communicate to all team members how each player fits on the team.
It’s obvious that you can’t have a winning team without teamwork. However, not every leader takes steps to help team members work together. If you communicate to all the players how all the people fit together and what strengths they bring for their role, then teammates will value and respect one another.
Emphasize completing one another above competing with one another.
Healthy competition between teammates is good. It presses them to do their best. But in the end, team members need to work together for the sake of the team, not only for themselves.
To some leaders, the idea of focusing almost entirely on strengths seems counterintuitive. Several years ago I was spending a day with leaders of several companies, and one of the subjects I addressed was the importance of staying in your strength zone. I repeatedly encouraged them not to work with their areas of weakness related to ability. During the Q&A session, a CEO pushed back against the idea. The example he used was that of Tiger Woods.
“When Tiger plays a bad round of golf,” he observed, “he goes straight to the driving range and practices for hours. You see, John, he’s working on his weaknesses.”
“No” I replied. “he’s working on his strengths. Tiger is the greatest golfer in the world. He’s practicing golf shots. He’s not practicing accounting or music or basketball. He is working on a weakness within his strength zone. That will always produce positive results.”
Working on a weakness in your strength zone will always produce greater results than working on a strength in a weak area. I love golf, but if I practice golf shots, I will never greatly improve. Why? Because I’m an average golfer. Practice won’t make perfect—it will make permanent! If I want to make progress. I need to keep working on my leadership and communication. Those are my strength zones.
Where are yours? It you’re spending time in them, then you are making an investment into your success.
Application Exercises
1. Have you identified your strength zone? If you and I were able to sit down and talk, would you be able to tell me your strengths? How specific would you be able to be? The older and more experienced you are, the more specific you should be able to be. If you are not sure of your strengths, follow the suggestions in the chapter: think about what you are doing well, listen to what colleagues say about your talents, and analyze where you have an edge over your competition.
2. Is your job utilizing your strengths? List three things you do well in your job. Now ask yourself these three questions:
• Are you doing them more or less?
• Are you developing them more or less?
• Are you bringing others around who complement your strengths?
If you answer no to any of those questions, you need to become more intentional about getting into your strength zone.
3. Are you leading team members into their strength zones? If you are a leader, your team is depending on you to help them find and stay in their strength zones. What have you done with each person to facilitate this? If you can’t cite specific actions, then you need to immediately follow the suggestions in the chapter to help them.
Dad also reinforced that advice by living it. One of his favorite sayings was “This one thing I do.” He had an uncanny ability to remain focused within his areas of strength. That, coupled with his determination to finish what he started, served him well throughout his career and beyond. He stays in his strength zone. It is one of the reasons he has always been the greatest inspiration for my life.
Searching For Strengths
When I started my career, I was committed to finding my strength zone and working to stay in it. However, I was frustrated for my first few years working. Like many inexperienced leaders. I tried to do many different things to discover what I really could do well. In addition, people’s expectations for what I would do and how I would lead did not always match my strengths. My responsibilities and obligations sometimes required that I perform tasks for which I possessed neither talent nor skill. I was often ineffective as a result. It took me several years to sort all this out, find my strength zone, and recruit and develop other people to compensate for my weaknesses.
If you are a voting leader and you are still uncertain about where your strengths lie, don’t get discouraged. Be patient and keep working it out. Here’s what I know: no matter if you’re just starting out or if you are at the peak of your career, the more you work in your strength zone, the more successful you will be.
Defining Personal Success
I’ve heard many definitions of success from many people over the years. In fact, I’ve embraced different definitions myself at different stages of my life. But in the last fifteen years, I have zeroed in on a definition that I think captures success no matter who people are or what they want to do.
I believe success is
Knowing your purpose in life,
Growing to your maximum potential, and
Sowing seeds that benefit others.
If you are to do those three things, you are successful. However, none of them is possible unless you find and stay in your strength zone.
I love the story of a group of neighborhood boys who built a tree house and formed their own club when the grown-ups were told who had been selected for which office, they were astonished to hear that a four- year- old had been elected president
“That boy must be a born leader,” one dad observed. “How did it happen that all you bigger boys voted for him?”
“Well, you see, Dad.” his son replied, “he can’t very well be secretary because he doesn’t know how to read or write. He couldn’t be treasurer, because he can’t count. He would never do for sergeant at arms because he’s too little to throw anybody out. If we didn’t choose him for anything, he’d feel bad. So we made him president.”
Real life, of course, doesn’t work that way. You don’t become an effective leader by default. You must be intentional. And you must work from your strengths.
Whenever I mentor people and help them discover their purpose, I always encourage them to start the process by discovering their strengths, not exploring their shortcomings. Why? Because people’s purpose in life is always connected to their giftedness. It always works that Way. You are not called to do some thing that you have no talent for. You will discover your purpose by finding and remaining in your strength zone.
Similarly, you cannot grow to your maximum potential if you continually work outside of your strength zone. Improvement is always related to ability. The greater your natural ability, the greater your potential for Improvement. I’ve known people who thought that reaching their potential would come from shoring up their weaknesses. But do you know what happens when you spend all your time working on your weaknesses and never developing your strengths? If you work really hard, you might claw your way all the way up to mediocrity! But you’ll never get beyond it. Nobody admires or rewards mediocrity.
The final piece of the puzzle—living a life that benefits others—always depends upon us giving our best, not our worst. You can’t change the world by giving only leftovers or by performing with mediocrity. Only your best will add value to others and lift them up.
Finding Your Own Strength Zone
British poet and lexicographer Samuel Johnson said, “Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess.” If you have an image in your mind of what talents people are supposed to have, yet your do not possess them, then you will have a difficult time finding your true strengths. You need to discover and develop who you are. Here are a few suggestions to help you:
1. Ask, “What Am I Doing Well?”
Develop who reach their potential spend less time asking, “What am I doing right?” and more time asking “What am I doing well?” The first is a moral question; the second is a talent question. You should always strive to do what’s right. But doing what’s right doesn’t tell you anything about your talent.
2. Get Specific
When we consider our strengths, we tend to think too broadly. Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, writes, “The great mystery isn’t that people do things badly but that they occasionally do a few things well. The only thing that is universal is incompetence. Strength is always specific! Nobody ever commented, for example, that the great violinist Jascha Heifetz probably couldn’t play the trumpet well.” The more specific you can get about your strengths, the better the chance you can find your “sweet spot.” Why be on the fringes of your strength zone when you have a chance to be right in the center?
3. Listen for What Others Praise
Many times we take our talents for granted. We think because we can do something well, anyone can. Often that’s not true. How can you tell when you’re overlooking a skill or talent? Listen to what others say. Your strengths will capture the attention of others and draw them to you. On the other hand, when you’re working in areas of weakness, few people will show interest. If others are continually praising you in a particular area, start developing it.
4. Check Out the Competition
You don’t want to spend all your time comparing yourself to others; that’s not healthy. But you don’t want to waste your time doing something that others do much better. Former GE CEO Jack Welch asserts, “If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.” People don’t pay for average. If you don’t have the talent to do something better than the competition, place your focus elsewhere.
To get a better picture of where you stand in relationship to the competition, ask yourself the following questions:
• Are others doing what I am doing?
• Are they doing it well?
• Are they doing at better than I am?
• Can I become better than they are?
• If I do become better, what will be the result?
• If I don’t become better, what will be the result?
The answer to the last question is: you lose. Why? Because your competition is working in their strength zone and you aren’t!
Former all-star baseball catcher Jim Sundberg advised, “Discover your uniqueness, then discipline yourself to develop it.” That’s what I’ve tried to do. Many years ago I realized that one of my strengths was communicating. People have always been motivated when they hear me speak. After a while, many opportunities were given to me to speak at events with other motivational speaker. At first it was very intimidating because they were so good. But as I listened to them, the thing I kept asking myself was, “What can I do that will set me apart from them?” I felt it might not be possible for me to be better than they were, but it would be possible for me to be different. Over time I discovered and developed that difference. I would strive to be a motivational teacher, not just a motivation speaker. I wanted people not only to enjoy what I shared but to also be able to apply what I taught to their lives. For more than two decades, I have disciplined my life to develop that uniqueness. It’s my niche—my strength zone.
To Be a Successful Leader, Find and Develop the Strength Zones of Your People
Whenever you see people who are successful in their work, you can rest assured that they are working in their strength zone. But that’s not enough if you want to be successful as a leader. Good leaders help others find their strength zones and empower them to work in them. In fact, the best leaders are characterized by the ability to recognize the special abilities and limitations of others, and the capacity to fit their people into the jobs where they will do best.
Sadly, most people are not working in their areas of strength and therefore not reaching their potential. The Gallup organization conducted research on 1.7 million people in the workplace. According to their findings, only 20 percent of employees feel that their strengths are in play every day in the work setting. In my opinion, that is largely the fault of their leaders. They have failed to help their people find their strengths and place them in the organization where their strengths can be an asset to the company.
In her book Hesselbein on Leadership, Frances Hesselbein, the chairman of the board of governors of the Leader to Leader Institute founded by Peter F. Drucker, writes, “Peter Drucker reminds us that organizations exist to make people’s strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant. And this is the work of effective leaders. Drucker also tells us that there may be born leaders but there are far too few to depend on them.”
If you desire to be an effective leader, you must develop the ability to develop people in their areas of strength. How do you do that?
Study and know the people on your team.
What are your people’s strengths and weaknesses? Whom do they relate to on the team? Are they growing and do they have more growth potential in the area in which they’re working? Is their attitude an asset or a Liability? Do they love what they do and are they doing it well? These are questions that must be answered by the leader.
Communicate to individuals how they fit on the team.
What are the strengths that they bring to the table? Are there times their contribution will be especially valuable? How do they complement the other members of the team? What do they need from the other players that will complement their weaknesses? The more that people know how they fit on a team, the more they will desire to properly make the most of their fit and maximize their contribution.
Communicate to all team members how each player fits on the team.
It’s obvious that you can’t have a winning team without teamwork. However, not every leader takes steps to help team members work together. If you communicate to all the players how all the people fit together and what strengths they bring for their role, then teammates will value and respect one another.
Emphasize completing one another above competing with one another.
Healthy competition between teammates is good. It presses them to do their best. But in the end, team members need to work together for the sake of the team, not only for themselves.
To some leaders, the idea of focusing almost entirely on strengths seems counterintuitive. Several years ago I was spending a day with leaders of several companies, and one of the subjects I addressed was the importance of staying in your strength zone. I repeatedly encouraged them not to work with their areas of weakness related to ability. During the Q&A session, a CEO pushed back against the idea. The example he used was that of Tiger Woods.
“When Tiger plays a bad round of golf,” he observed, “he goes straight to the driving range and practices for hours. You see, John, he’s working on his weaknesses.”
“No” I replied. “he’s working on his strengths. Tiger is the greatest golfer in the world. He’s practicing golf shots. He’s not practicing accounting or music or basketball. He is working on a weakness within his strength zone. That will always produce positive results.”
Working on a weakness in your strength zone will always produce greater results than working on a strength in a weak area. I love golf, but if I practice golf shots, I will never greatly improve. Why? Because I’m an average golfer. Practice won’t make perfect—it will make permanent! If I want to make progress. I need to keep working on my leadership and communication. Those are my strength zones.
Where are yours? It you’re spending time in them, then you are making an investment into your success.
Application Exercises
1. Have you identified your strength zone? If you and I were able to sit down and talk, would you be able to tell me your strengths? How specific would you be able to be? The older and more experienced you are, the more specific you should be able to be. If you are not sure of your strengths, follow the suggestions in the chapter: think about what you are doing well, listen to what colleagues say about your talents, and analyze where you have an edge over your competition.
2. Is your job utilizing your strengths? List three things you do well in your job. Now ask yourself these three questions:
• Are you doing them more or less?
• Are you developing them more or less?
• Are you bringing others around who complement your strengths?
If you answer no to any of those questions, you need to become more intentional about getting into your strength zone.
3. Are you leading team members into their strength zones? If you are a leader, your team is depending on you to help them find and stay in their strength zones. What have you done with each person to facilitate this? If you can’t cite specific actions, then you need to immediately follow the suggestions in the chapter to help them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
