In our blog two weeks ago, we talked about identifying your strengths and the strengths of your employees through the use of assessment tools.  The CheckPoint assessment is great for a manager to receive feedback from his/her boss, their direct reports, and their peers.  The ProfileXT tells you how you think, behave, and your occupational interests.  When used together, they present a comprehensive picture of what you do well, and why.

In this blog, now that you have identified those strengths, let’s look at the three steps to build upon those strengths.  Strength building, like all tasks with many steps, is like eating an elephant.  The only way you can eat an elephant is one bite at a time… 

Building Upon Your Strengths
The process of building upon strengths and talents is not easy, but it can be broken down into three steps.  You start by confirming your unique leadership strengths and talents.  The best way to do that is through the combination of the CheckPoint assessment feedback of those that see you perform as a leader, and the ProfileXT assessment to help you understand how you think, behave, and your occupational interests.  That is why your reports are so valuable.  Now that you have accurate feedback and information, you need to learn how to leverage this information.

Reflect upon your current and past positions in your career. How did your strengths and talents help you achieve results? Think about specific situations. Break down your actions in those situations and identify where your strengths accelerated your performance.

Once you have a good understanding of how your strengths have helped you in your past, then you need to further develop those strengths and talents.  One reason people struggle with building upon strengths is their misconception of how strengths are developed.  For years people thought if I can just gain more knowledge, I will grow in my job.  But experience has demonstrated “knowledge acquired does not necessarily result in knowledge applied.”

Developing Your Strengths On-The-Job
The best way to develop a leader is on-the-job.  It is not that taking courses or seminars cannot be beneficial; they can be.  Knowledge and skill acquired in courses or seminars rarely transfer to the job due to lack of feedback and reinforcement on-the-job.  Unless you have a highly motivated person, they return to the job and try the new skill once, maybe twice, but if they begin to realize what they are doing is not being perceived as important to the organization, they will revert back to doing things the old way.

So what are the best methods for developing on-the-job?  Bob Eichinger and Mike Lomminger, researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership, found that development starts with knowledge of, and application of, competencies.  Once you know your strengths and talents then you can work with your organization to provide you the opportunity to tackle job-specific challenges.  The type of challenges that make a difference is carrying a functional assignment from beginning to end, for example:

• being fully cross-trained in all tasks that impact your business and you
• implementing a companywide change
• implementing a plan to cut cost or control inventories
• negotiating agreements with your peers or other function leaders
• transitioning from being a reactive leader to a proactive leader
• increasing  your ability to solve increasing complex challenges that others have tried to solve in the past
• strengthening your customer service skills
• leading by example:
  • become proficient in the situational use of your leadership skills
  • coaching your direct reports and other employees
  • operating in high-pressure or high-visibility situations. 

These are just a few on-the-job activities; there are many more.  Practice your creativity skills and think outside the box. 

Another method of developing on-the-job is to gain specific organizational knowledge.  How much do you know about the different divisions, functions, processes, products, services, customers and technologies of your company and eventually your parent company?  Seek out this knowledge by reading everything you can about your company, seeking out experts in various functional areas and cataloging your information in such a way that you can quickly recall the data and use it when appropriate.  Other methods for developing on-the-job are through involvement with a mentor, participation in company sponsored executive, management, functional leader, supervisor, team leader training offerings.

Expanding Your Leadership Strengths

How can you expand the use of the strength?  Make a commitment to play to your strengths and talents whenever you’re in control of an assignment or situation.  Then, begin recognizing opportunities within your work group where you might help others by applying your strengths and talents.  Now you are ready to sit down with your boss and share your understanding of your strengths and talents.  You will need to be prepared to provide ideas about how you can further use those strengths in your current job and how your strengths will benefit the company in future opportunities.