In the movie “City Slickers”, Jack Palance, the old, grizzled cowboy, put his index finger into the air and told Billy Crystal that “the secret of life is one thing.  If you stick to that, everything else doesn’t matter.”  When asked what that one thing was, the cowboy replied, “that’s what you have to figure out”.  (watch the 30 second clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k1uOqRb0HU)

Are you trying to determine that one thing about yourself, the thing that makes you unique, where your greatness lies??

There is much research done on current trends in the area of leadership development.  One tome, written by Marcus Buckingham is, The One Thing You Need to Know … About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success. Mr. Buckingham states, “all great managers excel at turning one person’s talent into performance.  They discover what is unique about each person and capitalize on it.”

Buckingham further states in his book, Now, Discover Your Strengths, that “Great organizations must not only accommodate the fact that each employee is different, it must capitalize on these differences.”  The Gallop organization recently surveyed 1.7 million employees in 101 companies from 63 countries.  They asked the question, “Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?” The results were alarming.  Only 20 percent of employees working in large organizations felt their strengths are in play every day! “The most unusual part of the findings was that the longer an employee stays with an organization and the higher he or she climbs the traditional career ladder, the less likely they are playing to their strengths.”

What are your unique strengths?  At work do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?  You are a leader in your company.  You possess technical, managerial and leadership strengths.  How do you go about confirming your unique mix of strengths?  The most common way is to ask for feedback from people who observe you while in the act of leading.

Take the responsibility to identify your own unique mix of leadership strengths and your talents. The CheckPoint360° and ProfileXT are assessment tools that provide two reliable sources of data to confirm your unique mix of leadership strengths. Make a commitment to meet with your boss to share your findings.  Discuss the current use of your strengths and identify how you plan to increase the use of these strengths on-the-job.  The manager of the leader needs to know their unique strengths and talents.  Make a personal commitment to find out who’s good at what, and commit to building upon those strengths.  A Gallop survey reported when employees have the opportunity to do what they do best, they were 50 percent more likely to work in business units with lower employee turnover, 38 percent more likely to work in more productive units, and 44 percent more likely to work in units with higher customer satisfaction scores.