Coming to
grips with the need to modulate your strengths is some of the hardest
developmental work you will ever do.
~Robert E. Kaplan and Robert B. Kaiser
Fear your strengths?
Really? Yes, really. First, I'll share my own example. I've completed many different personality
profiles. I need to be aware of what
instruments and assessments are available for my work, so the best way to learn
about them is to take them. And, there
is some consistency across all of my profiles.
One of the consistencies is that I'm a perfectionist. There are a number of strengths that go along
with being a perfectionist. I'm
principled, I’m always looking for ways to improve things, and I'm an advocate
for change, to name a few.
However, when I focus too
much on being a perfectionist, it can also mean that I may procrastinate
because if I can't do something perfectly then I may not want to even try to do
it at all. It also means that I'm
evaluating myself and consequently beating myself up when I didn't do something "perfectly." I may have done it really
well, but for me "well" isn't good enough.
In my world, everything requires perfection. So I try even harder.
That's when I realized I needed to find a different way to
look at my strengths and tone down my perfectionism. I took note that one of the personality
assessments described my "type" as reformer,
which has perfectionist characteristics. Looking at my work and life through the lens of a reformer as opposed to a perfectionist creates a much different
view of the world. As a reformer, I just
need to know that I helped to make a positive change; that I truly did help
improve things. I don't need to be able
to show that I blew the top off of the perfection meter. I didn't abandon my strengths or who I am. I did some recalibrating to allow my
strengths to once again, truly be my strengths and not the thing that was
actually preventing me moving forward.
I see this in leaders.
When organizations aren't going as well as their leaders would like;
they try harder. And many times trying
harder means giving an extra boost to their strengths, not realizing that too
much of a good thing may actually contribute to the problem, not resolve it.
In the book Fear Your Strengths authors Robert B. Kaiser and Robert E. Kaplan describe a study they
completed with leaders. Most leader assessments
structure questions assuming that "more" is always "better." Instead, Kaiser and Kaplan use a scale that
ranges from "too little" to "the right amount" to "too much." And their findings are quite revealing.
The more pronounced your natural talent and the stronger your
strengths, the graver the risk of taking them to counterproductive
extremes. There is a clear correlation
between having talent in certain areas and overdoing behaviors associated with
those talents. For instance, leaders
whose StrengthsFinder results indicated such talents as "achiever," "activator," or "command" were more often rated as doing "too much" forceful
leadership. Similarly, those who had the
talents "developer," "harmony," or "includer" were more often rated as doing "too
much" enabling leadership. Overall,
leaders were five times more likely to overdo behaviors related to their areas
of natural talent than areas in which they were less gifted.
Taking your strengths too far has consequences. Kaiser and Kaplan's study showed a
relationship between leader behavior and employee engagement, team
productivity, and effectiveness. In
every case, these outcomes are lower for managers rated "too little" on the
leader behaviors, peak for those rated "the right amount," and drop back down
for those rated "too much." Overdoing it
is just as ineffective as underdoing it.
Maybe it"s time to think about recalibrating your strengths?
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