I’m a big believer in playing to our strengths – I don’t think that’s news to anyone who knows me. When we work from a place of strength, a place of confidence and interest, we enjoy what we’re doing. We lose track of time as we delve into our subject; we take pride in our achievement. We feel we’ve accomplished something worthwhile.

When we’re tackling a subject which is less in tune with our natural abilities, we don’t enjoy ourselves nearly as much. Time drags on, and the result is perhaps better than we might have managed a year ago, but it’s not our best work and doesn’t provide the same level of satisfaction in ourselves and our accomplishments.

But, as a business owner, I must realize that playing to my strengths can be taken too far – and that’s a pitfall we all encounter, no matter what our strengths are or how many we have.

For example, decisiveness in leadership is a great and necessary asset. But it can lead us to want to decide now, shutting down our teams’ input and feedback – with the result that we may not have all the necessary facts on which to base our decision, and our team members will not feel heard or respected.

The drive to achieve is core and key to the entrepreneurial mind. We love taking on challenges, overcoming obstacles, inspiring those around us to do the same. But we can, as a result, go into overdrive ourselves in this area, leading to burnout and depletion of our inner resources. We can push our team members too hard, leading to the same depletion and burnout in them.

The converse can happen when we truly desire to foster and support our teams, encourage them in their own strengths, listen to everyone’s ideas. Because we risk letting that supportive attitude tip over into lax discipline, lost productivity as they “find their footing.” Listening to every single idea from every single team member can lead to long, meandering meetings which waste time and hamper decision-making.

Those who are driven to achieve, while wanting to be decisive and supportive as well, can snap between the extremes of each of those strengths – we decide we’ve been driving our people too hard, and ease back too far. When we become impatient with the resulting drops in productivity and focus among our team, we may return to over-driving them.

This is far from conducive to our best interests as business owners. Our teams need reliable and consistent leadership, they need us to make firm decisions, to inspire and encourage them, to demand their best and give them space to achieve that best, to listen to them, but to always keep the reins in our own hands, reading our teams so that we can ease them back when they’ve pushed themselves a little too far (or we have), and pushing them again if they mistake compassionate management for indulgence.

But if we are going to be the leaders we want and need to be, we first must understand ourselves, how we operate as individuals, what our strengths are, and how we let them stray into weaknesses.

Some tips I’ve found helpful on this path:

• Schedule solitary time on a regular basis. Take a walk, meditate, pray, etc. – whatever works to calm and focus our minds. Then, we think about our day, what situations we encountered, and how we responded – or did we react? Which is intentional and mindful; reaction is a reflex – which do we want to govern our actions? Mindfulness, or knee-jerks? Mindfulness and intentional actions will serve us far better – certainly in our business, but also in our personal lives. Because being mindful gives us more real control – and we have the most control over our own selves. We can improve the way we handle our realities.

• Ask for feedback from our team on how they perceive us. Make the questions specific, serious – and compose them mindfully with an eye to making our business a better place for ourselves and our clients as well as for our teams. This feedback should be anonymous, which will allow our teams to be honest with us.
• Ask our friends, ask our spouses (they will almost certainly have some suggestions!), ask our children, maybe, what they think we do and handle well, and what we could be doing better.

Sometimes we must embrace a little discomfort – that’s just life. We have to do the hard thing – whether it’s the release of an employee who, try as they may, just can’t measure up to what we need, disengaging with a client whose demands are unreasonable and who makes you and your team anxious and unhappy, or improving the way we work with our people – clients and team members alike (and our families, too!).

It’s about finding balance. We’ve each been given a unique combination of strengths, and we should celebrate and use them – but mindfully and with measure. So that they remain strengths, rather than flipping into weakness.

Yes, all of this is our job, if we want our team to be its most productive, our business its most profitable and enjoyable for everyone, and ourselves the best version of who we are.

Impossible? Very likely it is – but we can strive toward that goal, even if we won’t perfectly attain it. Perfection is not in our reach, but improvement always is.

After all, we’re entrepreneurs – we do love a challenge! And there are Robert Browning’s words of wisdom:

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?”

How do you balance your strengths to ensure you use them rightly, and don’t push them into weaknesses? Please click here to email me directly – I’d love to hear your strategies!

Until next time –

Peace,

Eric