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.