Personal Strengths and the TEAM

One of the pillars of an effective Leader is Intelligence. Being “Intelligent” doesn’t mean you have to be a rocket scientist or a candidate for a PhD. It does mean that you have to possess certain abilities and qualities that deal with expanding your knowledge base, as well as situational and self-awareness. Situational and Self-awareness play heavily in building and maintaining a successful and strong team. This is one of the most important things that an Educational Leader can address.

So…what do you need to know, and why is this awareness so important? Well, you need to be aware that—and this is main point #1 in this lesson—you, as a person/leader, should work on improving your strengths and bring people into your team that can make up for your weaknesses. For many this flies in the face of all we’ve been taught since childhood. In school, if weak in math, but strong in Language Arts, we were admonished to spend more time doing math homework. In sports if we were weak at making goals in basketball, but did well ball handling, the coach kept us after practice to shoot more not dribble.

So WHY do I think addressing our strengths and not wasting time on our weaknesses is a good idea. Leadership guru John Maxwell likes to point out a west coast university study on improving one’s skills. The study would rank a person’s various skills on a level of one to ten (one being weak and ten strong). They would then take an individual and work with them on a particular skill. The study showed that, overall, any person, with intense practice, could only improve any single skill by only two or three points. That means that if you were a “two” in a certain area, the most you could expect to improve would be to a “five”. Guess what? “Five” is mediocre. Successful people (or organizations) don’t pay for mediocrity. Mediocrity does not improve one’s team. However, if you’re a “five” or “six” in an area, you are most likely to improve to a “seven” to “nine”. Now that makes you well above average in most books. Now you’re a star. People want stars as their leaders and/or on their team.

Now let’s take this philosophy to a different level. Now, you’re the leader of a team you’ve inherited. You’re a new grade level coordinator, campus principal or superintendent or any team leader in your ISD. You have people in positions in which you didn’t place them, and there’s definitely room for improvement for your teams performance. What do you do?

One of the first rules of Leadership for the “new guy” is to “sit on your hands”. Do nothing (unless it is an extremely critical situation). Observe. What is going on? What is the dynamics of your Team and the Situation? Once you have the lay of the land you need to—and this is main point #2 in this lesson—PLAY TO TEAM MEMBERS’ STRENGTHS AND NOT MANAGE AROUND THEIR WEAKNESSES. One of the foremost students and teachers of leadership, Peter Drucker, pointed this out. He was fond of pointing out, “You gotta major in strengths not in weaknesses.” But is that what many of us do when we acquire the “old regime’s” team? Negative. How often do we shake our heads and complain about our “weak link”, only to leave them where they are and assign them a mentor, send them to some seminar, or worse, ignore them, hoping that they will change or just not screw something up very badly??!

Observe the individual. Surely, they were hired for some valuable reason. Study the situation. Identify the teacher’s strengths. What is the assistant superintendent good at? Once you’ve made that determination, move that individual to that area where he can CONTRIBUTE to the team. Steve Pollard (a student of Drucker’s and retired CEO of ServiceMaster) pointed out that one could only achieve something with her strengths. Through her weaknesses, she can achieve nothing. Team members making positive contributions is the mark of an effective team.

“Strengths”. That’s the key word in this lesson. Focusing on the strengths of your team members is the secret of successful teams. Do not get caught in the trap of managing around subordinates’ weaknesses and problems. Remember, as Bill Pollard said, “[A successful leader] knows how to bring an individual’s strengths into play, making his weaknesses irrelevant.”