Leadership in Strengths- Mainly for those of you who work for large companies

In my years of work in executive coaching and training, I continually see examples of why organizations never achieve their full potential. (For purposes of this discussion, I will stick to focusing on people’s strengths, and not digress into an examination of the morons running many of our largest corporations)

Take the issue of accountability. Organizations all over the globe continue to focus on people’s weaknesses. Why is this? Evaluations are typically geared in that manner. What do the people need to improve? What areas do they really suck? What training do they need to address their absolute weakest areas?

It seems so counterintuitive doesn't it? Shouldn't we really be giving people more opportunity to grow and develop in the areas they are strongest? What about the areas they actually like, and maybe even love? Just too weird.

Instead of taking this approach, many organizations prefer to focus on an individual’s weakness, and insure compliance to all standards. My personal perspective, is I have never really cared if an employee stunk in one or two minor areas. I would rather inspire greatness in a few areas that really contribute to the production of the team.

You even see this errant approach in areas such as “career development” for people who show above average potential. Many functional leaders still insist upon “rotating” these individuals into other assignments whether or not the employee has any interest in the new position. The flawed logic is that they will be better employees with a broader exposure to different functional units. While that may be true, if you are looking to develop the next CEO, unfortunately that doesn’t apply to the vast majority (read pretty much all) of these ridiculous moves.

We take talented and aggressive sales managers and people, and move
them into areas where they have no contact with customer, but can better understand “processes”. We move brilliant finance and accounting professionals into management positions even though they may have little people skills, and even less skill in leadership. We move great operators, and project team leads, into marketing management positions leads because we need to “round them out!”

What we do is create generalists, who will never be as good or valuable for your organization as they could have been if you let them grow in areas they have both skill and passion.

I sense I am rambling, so I will attempt to explain with a sports analogy.

Don Butkis is the Corporate HR Manager for Big Company, Inc. Don believes that all management candidates must have multiple rotations and experiences prior to being promoted into any functional discipline. Even once promoted into a separate discipline, Don still believes that you should continue to rotate people, so they don’t get “complacent” in their assignments. Don even gets nervous if someone shows strong interest or even “talent” in a position; because he fears they might like what they’re doing too much. Or even worse, they might become too talented in an area, and then leave Big company Inc. to start their own business. They might even work for the competition! Don can’t let that happen, so if he keeps everyone average, and constantly trying to learn new assignments, and working on weaknesses, that will not be a risk.

Now, let’s assume that Don becomes the manager of a professional baseball team that finally has a pretty stable roster. In the process of Don evaluating the team, he decides that rotations need to be made so that the players can better understand each other’s roles.

He moved his all star catcher to the outfield. His Golden Glove first baseman was moved to start catching. He started working with his top pitchers on their hitting, as their batting averages were terrible, and this was an obvious area of weakness.


I know this may be a shocker to all of you, but the team started performing much worse in the following months.
If this was a real story in professional baseball, the manager would be fired immediately, if not roasted on a grill by the fans.

In the corporate world, it is happening every day. But instead of firing the managers, or applicable leaders, the approach is very different. The managers continue to focus on weaknesses at the employee level, and the fans (shareholders) may not necessarily be holding the leadership up to the same standard of putting a winning team on the field.

The best coaches and leaders focus on the strengths of their team. They find what their people on their team do the very best, or where they have strength and passion. They then give them the opportunity to expand and grow in that role. They then look to plug weaknesses with the right people and fit. They find the best player! It is not about a rotation, or filling a hole, it is about aligning the right person with the right opportunity. That is one of the areas areas that will have maximum impact for any organization.

Believe it or not, the people will also be happier, and more driven to succeed.