Our Strengths and Weaknesses are Known

This is one of my guiding beliefs and I invite you to take it on, too. This belief has the power to reduce stress, improve clarity, and make your likeability skyrocket. Really!

Our strengths and weaknesses are known. Leadership is a social act. It occurs in conversation. It is visible. And because leadership is visible, what we are great at and what we stink at is known. If we are a control freak, everyone knows this. If we tend to become defensive when people offer alternative ideas, everyone sees this. If we meet our time lines, this is known, If we routinely miss deadlines, people have learned this about us. The ways in which we ADD to the team are known and the ways in which we REDUCE team effectiveness is known.

And we all excel at some things and not at others. We are beautifully flawed leaders, even the best of us! The reason that adopting this belief – that our strengths and weaknesses are known – is freeing is that this means that there is no downside to being open about our challenges and fatal flaws. Our employees will not respect us less if we acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses. In fact, if we are open and show an interest in reducing derailing factors, peers and employees will respect us more.

Your strengths and weaknesses ARE known. Make sure you are not the last to know and that you use the power of this belief to grow while improving your reputation.

Comments

[Susan C. Rink]

I have to say that this post really hit home for me. Last week I spent a full day at a client site and during that visit no fewer than five VPs pulled me aside to brief me on their boss's "pet peeves" -- which in actuality was code for their opinion of her strengths and weaknesses. As you might suspect, all five VPs gave me the same list, with few variations.

[Dubai Blog]

I completely agree it. We just need to understand that SWOT analysis is not only important for business it is also important for us and through that we can identify our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for our selves and threats to us.

[Dubai Blog]

I completely agree it. We just need to understand that SWOT analysis is not only important for business it is also important for us and through that we can identify our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for our selves and threats to us.

[Mike]

Are strengths weaknesses really known?

the situation and context changes with the OT part of a swot analysis - what was a strength may be a weakness - for example - blockbuster - having lots of wide spread retail outlets with video & DVD was a strength - and then before they knew it, having that overhead was a weakness in the "view at home" market

assuming that we "know" S & W and that they are stable is a dangerous place to be.

Mike
http://rapidbi.com/created/SWOTanalysis/