The Trouble with Strengths-Based Development
Avoid the temptation to be all things, even when every strength sounds good and important. Who you are not matters.
No one trusts a salesperson who claims their product is for everyone. No one markets a movie to every demographic. But far too often, a leader’s introduction into strengths ends at the initial dopamine hit of the feel-good descriptors of their talent. Ideally, naming and claiming who you are comes with the courage to discard labels or expectations where you will not excel. But that takes patience and permission, and far too often, we don’t go all the way through the exercise of self-awareness.
Instead, leaders are introduced to all the possible talents a person could have. It’s uncomfortable to admit there are positive attributes you do not possess, so to continue the feel-good train to nowhere, they find ways to account for their lesser strengths. They get creative, saying “I don’t naturally do that, but if I think hard about it I’ll be fine.” Or just as bad, they dismiss the importance of their lesser talents: “Oh, I’m so glad that’s not me. How is that even a good thing?”
Teams often will do a similar dance, noting the rarity of a possible talent and finding ways to bend the strengths they do have into shapes that resemble knock-off versions of the talent they are missing. But the very nature of strengths-based develpoment is an invitation to be who you are—which means to let go of who you are not. The world does not need you to be everything. Your team does not expect or even think you’re capable of doing it all. And yet, when we fail to truly claim our own style out of fear that it means rejecting a style that might be more universally attractive, the most we get from the strengths intervention is a happy afternoon retreat. And the most we get from our own self-awareness is a passable knock-off, not the designer brand. Not the transformation we were promised.
Failure to embrace the specificity of our own talents makes strengths-based coaching no better than a feel-good exercise.
Apply that to your own development–who are you? But also, who are you not? When do you feel tempted to stretch yourself into shapes that don't feel natural? This takes more than just naming the ways our default behavior could be misapplied or misunderstood. I’m not interested in chasing our tail around whether or not our most natural talents are good or bad. Let’s assume they lead to tremendous potential. What I’m encouraging is much more holistic–and more difficult–than simply naming how your strengths could go wrong.
Maturity means getting closer and closer to your most natural pathways of problem-solving, connecting, and leading. That means you have to notice what is NOT for you, and let it go.
Be a closer observer of who you are not.
What’s something you used to feel like you had to do or be, that actually doesn’t light you up completely?
What do you admire in a leader who is not at all like you? How does freedom from that pattern of behavior accentuate the patterns you naturally lean into?
What can you let go?
It’s hard to do, because we live in the world of “more=better.” We are encouraged to be great, or at least good, at everything. And even among the community of strengths-based practitioners, we try to find ways to stretch a strength beyond its natural limit so that we can creatively approach whatever problem is in front of us. But real talent-based development should include careful examination of the invitations we receive. When a team member asks you to take on a task, are they asking because they know you’ll complete it, or because you are the best person for the job? Do you want to say yes out of obligation or out of joy?
The point of developmental coaching is to help you do this work life thing right–to pay attention to how you are growing while you are doing the work. And great coaches should be helping you notice your own energetic response to the way you lead, the people you lead, the values you drive, and the behaviors you stand for. You should be more clear about what is truly aligned to your natural talents today than you were a year ago. And one year from now, it should be even easier for you to identify the pathways of problem solving that come most naturally to you.
According to research into Career Wellbeing, this is the place where you are learning something interesting every day. You are feeling needed for the unique pathways of thinking that you bring. You are challenged to be held accountable to the potential you possess.
To get to a place where you feel needed for what you bring, there’s an important stop on the journey. It’s naming what you do not bring, and what does not align with your values. It’s equally important to know what is needed that you can do, but won’t do with ease or excellence. We have to approach this from a different angle than most of us approached education. Talents are not outcomes, they are not indicators of success in a specific job. They are different for a reason—no one has or needs them all. If you see every single way of thinking as a behavior to be mastered, you will miss the opportunity to see yourself in any of them.
The hard work here is the courage to believe there are enough people who would perform better than you at something, and to bravely promote your partners instead of falling victim to the fear that if you can’t do it all, your value will be tarnished.
Here’s a few examples of courageous self-awareness based on strength. Notice how vibrant these definitions are, how honest and specific they sound.
Laura is a feeler. She can read a room before anyone else even takes a breath. Please come to her, even if you haven’t worked together before, for insight on how a new client might want to be treated. She works quickly and trusts her gut, so expose her to the key players early on. She is not going to have her eye on the details or deadlines of a project, so be prepared to offer her more support here than most. Challenge her to name things she is feeling sooner, as she sometimes holds them in for fear she will sound crazy. But she has very rarely been wrong. Expect her to need to release her emotions occasionally. This isn’t bad. It’s very real. And it’s typically an indicator of what others are feeling but not showing.
Steve is the most organized, practical leader. He has a system for every problem. He tries to remember this is unique, but sometimes he has to slow down on purpose to introduce others to the discipline he has applied to a specific situation. He will benefit from direct feedback, especially when he has inadvertently left people behind as they were trying to learn his expectations. He will not leave a single detail untouched, and makes it look fun and effortless in the process.
Maika thrives on seeing what is good and making it better. She loves spotting the potential in any situation, and will elevate the experience of everyone involved. Her high energy and quick wit means she might overwhelm some people who are not interested or ready to see the glass as half full. Challenge her to focus her message, as it will be remembered. She likely will not prepare far in advance the same way she shows up on the scene. Expect her to truly shine in the moment, especially when there are high-stakes audiences involved.
When a focus on strengths truly leads to the kind of engagement and performance that it promises, it’s through deep awareness of self and others. It’s not in highlighting only the positive, and it’s certainly not in finding creative ways to expect people to be watered down enough to be anything they are not. Real strengths development is a study of extremes. It’s finding further depth in the exploration of self, rather than more and more ways you can stretch for breadth. Once you’ve created the safety to do that, the exploration begins.
Consider exploring your own extremes. Experience just how brave and supported you have to be in order to make it work:
What was the best job you were asked to do this week? What was the worst?
What does the worst tell you that you’d like to avoid in the future?
What does the best indicate you might want more of?
Think of three people who have asked you for help, an opinion, or your presence recently. What did they come to you for?
What does this tell you about what you are known for?
What have you tried to be good at that is not being noticed?
Imagine yourself 10 years in the future. You like what you see.
What have you stopped doing?
What have you done more of?
I love getting to introduce a group of leaders to the concept of strengths. It goes well. They remember it. They say things like, “Wow! You really nailed me!” and “I can’t believe how detailed this description is.” But strengths discovery is not the same thing as strengths development. Strengths development is hard. It takes permission, courage, and it includes saying no.
This is why the promise of strengths-based development is so starkly different from what most of us encounter in our workplaces. Go all the way through the discovery. Do the hard work of identifying areas you are not going to be the very best. Stand strong in those too, because being free of certain ways of feeling, areas of expertise, or commitments to excellence is just as much a part of where you are incredible as knowing what to do more of.
Your invitation to the elite team is here for the taking. Highlights really pop when they’re contrasted with lowlights. So have the courage to name what you do not bring to the table. It will free you up to specialize in the talents you have in abundance. Go all the way.
