A book and a cup of coffee

In life, most of us are leaders in one capacity or another. You don’t have to be a CEO to be called a leader. Skeptical – have you led a project, a community service organization or even a household? There are many aspects to leadership which stretch beyond the traditional business role. Relating to them helps to sharpen our awareness and leads heightened business acumen. I am opening this blog with this reminder because I am going to focus on Strengths Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie and I don’t want anyone to pass it over because they may not be a traditional business leader. Leadership applies to all of us in one form or another and we should embrace leadership lessons as much as possible. More on this in the future, but for now, onto this week’s thoughts…

In last week’s post I discussed how we should embrace our own strengths instead of those of someone else. Now let’s take that one step further. As leaders what if we try understanding the strengths of those we are leading and use them for the benefit of the team? Taking this positive approach will yield positive results and is the core foundation of the Strengths Based Leadership book. How does this tie back to business acumen? Going back a few weeks, I posted a definition of business acumen from CEO online that included “motivation of staff.” To motivate your staff you need to know your staff.

To know your staff you have to go beyond the surface. People are more than the tasks they are assigned. Do you know how they like to work, what their goals are and if they have ideas for improvement? What are their strengths and how can they be utilized? Are you missing opportunities because you don’t know your staff’s thoughts and ideas? What effort have you put into finding what they are? People find motivation when they feel engaged. This extends to having their strengths used. Think of yourself for a minute – how often have you had a leader that helped your level of engagement by pushing you towards your strengths rather than picking apart your weaknesses? There are times when those leaders seem to be the exception more than the rule. The funny thing is that it not hard to do.

An executive I know really embraces the concept of engaging his staff and Strength Based Leadership. So much that he has given each of his staff a copy of the book – but not in the typical way of just handing a person a book – he makes a personal effort. Whenever possible he takes the person to the local bookstore and buys them a copy. They might have lunch together before they go or they stop for coffee while they are there. He uses the purchase of the book as a connecting point in their relationship. Not only that but he follows up on their assessment and uses it to help them in their career.

Imagine that a simple book and a cup of coffee can actually help change an employee’s experience. Something so basic can go so far and yet it is often overlooked. Personally, I have never had a supervisor make that effort with me – have you? Most of my previous supervisors were too busy pointing out what they considered to be faults than promoting my strengths. In whatever your leadership capacity may be, please take this lesson and make it an opportunity that focuses on strengths and improved engagement. The results can only serve to increase motivation of your staff and your own business acumen. To think, it may just start with a book and a cup of coffee…

To take the Strength Finders assessment and learn more, simply purchase the Strength Based Leadership book. It comes with a code that allows you to take the assessment and receive a profile based on your results. If you missed it last week, here is a link to the website: http://strengths.gallup.com/110440/About-StrengthsFinder-2.aspx.

Focus on strength

I am going to start this week’s blog with a rhetorical question: “Why do we worry so much about our weaknesses instead of spending our energy on our strengths?” Does all of that worrying really get us anywhere?


No, of course it doesn’t and it is part of the premise of the Strengths Based Leadership book by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie. This book is just one of many written about a thirty year research project undertaken by the Gallop organization called the Strength Finders assessment (Conchie and Rath, 2008). What I like about Strength Finders is that as the name implies, it focuses on an individual strengths through a series of questions. The research found that there are many different strength traits that can be categorized into four categories: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building and Strategic thinking. I don’t want to go too far into this as I think you should take the assessment and learn for yourself. I do want to note that the Strengths Based Leadership book continues the research into the topic of leadership. This week I am going to talk a little about the necessity of knowing your personal strengths which will lead to next week’s topic of using this process as a leader.

Side note - to take the assessment and learn more simply purchase the Strength Based Leadership book. It comes with a code that allows you to take the assessment and receive a profile based on your results. If you missed it last week, here is a link to the website: http://strengths.gallup.com/110440/About-StrengthsFinder-2.aspx.

Now, I am not advocating that in focusing on our strengths we should abandon self improvement projects. What we need to do is ensure in the process of growing and improving, we don’t forget to capitalize on our strengths. As human beings we have unique talents. By using a tool, such as the Strength Finders assessment, we can key in on our individual strengths and talents as a way to improve our business acumen.

Is it really that important? Yes, I really believe that it is and here is an example of why: Is there someone – a leader, a friend, a family member, even a public figure – that you try to emulate but don’t quite succeed? Do you try to model your business style on that of your supervisor but you don’t get the same results? It can be so frustrating! You end up spinning your wheels to become someone that you are not. That frustration may even lead to a feeling of disillusionment or loss of motivation. Those feelings certainly won’t sharpen your business acumen!

Instead of trying to use someone else’s strengths, what if you used your own? Imagine the possibilities - taking this approach will probably keep you more engaged and interested in your business. This motivation will lead to better business acumen. As a personal example, one of my strengths as assessed is being strategic. Having strategic in my strength profile indicates that I can easily problem solve and like to look at different angles of a problem. By knowing this I can focus on situations that allow me to use these skills for my own fulfillment and to the success of the organization. The use of my strategic component will be an advantage for me because successes in solving issues will serve to increase my motivation. Additionally, it will be an advantage for my business because my strength in problem solving will be utilized for its benefit. It’s truly a win-win. On the other side, if I were to go into a situation where the problems were solved for me and I just had to execute the plan, I would be miserable and unmotivated. Certainly those are not qualities one would associate with business acumen!

It’s important to note that one strength is not better than another. They are all equal and our individual combinations help make us unique!

As I mentioned before, next week I am going to move this along further by discussing how we should use Strength Finders in our leadership of others. Until then, embrace your strengths and make a difference in your workplace. May we all find our successes together!