Using All The Strengths In Your Toolbox
The word “strength” has an enormous amount of definitions. It’s also a top 10 word in the conversation about leadership and personal development. So despite the crowded space, I wanted to share a perspective on this topic.
Strengths are not what you are “naturally good at.” None of them came with you at birth. They have formed in you throughout your journey and shaped by your experiences, all in service of your success and survival. They are muscles you’ve developed, practices you’ve honed, and expertise you’ve curated throughout the years. I like to say strengths are earned, never inherited!
In a working context, strengths are your tools. They are how you get the work done. They are the attributes, both functional and behavioral, that other people regularly applaud and appreciate. They travel with you and are in a constant state of growth and evolution. They are, literally, the tools of your trade.
In the world of the Strengths Deployment Inventory (the personal and team assessment I primarily work with), we speak about Top Strengths, Middle Strengths, and Bottom Strengths. The belief in SDI is that we have a huge range of strengths available to us in our leadership (28 in fact!), and the path to growth is knowing how to use the right strength at the right time for the right reason to be more effective.
Again, this view from SDI breaks the mantra that exists in a lot of leadership thinking and assessments: focus on your strengths…mitigate your weakness…all will work out. SDI challenges us to not get stuck in the rut of using the same strengths all the time, in part because we might overdo those strengths…which then show up as a “weakness” and can be a conflict trigger for those around you. We want versatility and pliability in the strengths we use, and work from a space of self-belief that we can bring the right strength forward when we thoughtfully choose to do so.
But even when we speak about this language and mindset, people can get hung up on “what am I good at?” and “I can’t do XXXX strength.” This hangs on the dysfunctional belief that it’s some form of innate incapability or genetic blocker that stops us from accessing a particular strength.
In my case, I have Risk Taking very low in my SDI strengths portrait. That doesn’t mean I’m especially shitty at taking risks or don’t know how to do it. It’s just that I rarely access that strength, and it’s not a common way in which I solve problems or get things done. It’s inherently uncomfortable for me to take risks, which leads me to shun the emotional exposure and feelings that come with using that strength.
So working with leaders and teams, I like to talk about strengths (our tools) as they sit in our professional tool box.
The Top Tray: Contains your most used tools – the screwdriver, drill, utility knife. These are your go-to strengths, applied to most tasks regardless of the specific job.
The Second Drawer: Holds tools you know how to use but access less often, only for specific situations – like a level or putty knife. They feel familiar when you pick them up, even if it's been a while.
The Bottom: Contains a wide selection of tools you rarely use, some you might even forget how to use or what they're for. Yet, they are available. With intention and courage, you can pull them out, dust them off, and put them to work.
In recent times, I’ve been coaching a number of leaders moving to new roles and new mandates, either with new organizations or with the one they’ve been with for a while. For all these clients, I like to ask the following question as we build their 30/60/90/100 plan and set their intention for the new challenge:
What’s the part of your expertise and leadership that’s not been fully utilized in your past work? What’s an important strength that has a place in your future?
What we’re trying to identify here is a great strength or expertise that their previous role and work couldn’t find a great home for. Maybe it’s because the previous role/company didn’t value that strength. Maybe it's because the leader lost sight of their ability to access that strength when they needed it. Maybe it’s because the context and challenge at the time of that role/company didn’t really need that strength or expertise.
But moving to a new role or company provides a chance to reset. It’s a chance to find that long-lost tool at the bottom of the toolbox, scrub the rust off it, and put it to work with great utility and purpose.
So how do we organize our toolbox and figure out all the strengths we have available to us? Here’s a few starting points:
Write Them Down - start with where you stand today. Take your pen and start with a fresh sheet in front of you and just start writing down the tool inventory you believe you have today. Remember to include both functional/technical strengths and behavioural/leadership strengths, because they both matter. Here are some questions to nudge your thinking along:
What do people come to you for?
What’s something that you are a “go-to” person for?
What problems do your co-workers invite you into? What do your friends tend to share with you and invite you into?
Do An Assessment - there are lots of great, time-tested assessments available to get some research-based understanding of our strengths. Assessments can also be a great way to identify the right language and “labelling” of our strengths so they make more sense to us and others. They help us tell our story and engage others in our own development.
Ask For Feedback - don’t let your overwhelming modesty get in the way. When asking for feedback from peers/managers/colleagues, we usually start in the negative by asking, “where do I need to improve?” or “what strength am I missing today?”. We can have the courage to ask questions about what others appreciate and celebrate about us. Try questions like, “what’s a strength of mine you think I can lean into more?” or “what’s a strength you believe benefits our team the most?”.