Strengths

So much is written about people's strengths that it can be very overwhelming. How do you manage to someone's strengths if you are not able to identify them or uncover them. It has been my experience that you have to dig deeper than knowing the person on a professional level you have to know them on a personal level. Who are they? What are their core values?

For myself as an example I have spent my professional career in sales and sales management. However one of my personal strengths is the ability to build relationships with my staff quickly and develop them as leaders. If you looked at my resume you would probably say this person is a pure sales person and how would they fit into our organization?

As a leader you have to find out what makes people tick. In my example I would rather spend 10 hours a day working with people, reviewing strategies, implementing ideas however a majority of my time is spent working on sales and business development. Leaders need to build a relationship with their staff and engage in these conversations on a regular basis. As people's lives change so do their goals and aspirations. A very good friend of mine was a high level executive who had all the perks (company car, expense account, large salary, and bonus) then he had a child and all of a sudden these were not as important. He decided to leave this role and satrt up something on his own to spend more time with his family. I guess the morale of the story is if you are engaged with your team you will know when these changes take place. You will be more likely to make proactive changes than reactive changes. As a leader it is not enough to hit the numbers you have to build deep relationships that can stand the test of time.