integrate - Patti Cotton

Mastering Your Inner Leader, Part III

Why aren’t your strengths working for you?

You’ve read the book. You went to the company training. You’ve taken the assessment that told you what your top strengths are. It was kind of an interesting exercise.

But knowing what your strengths are hasn’t changed a thing for you.

Unfortunately, strengths become hungry when they aren’t used. In fact, your strengths might just do you in, rather than help you out.

What do you do?

You must address the issue because, without mastering your strengths, you won’t be able to master your leadership.

In the last two weeks, we’ve talked about the importance of mastering your inner leader, or your “leadership DNA,” in order to powerfully engage with others and execute your best work (if you missed the first two steps, click here for Part I and Part II of this series).

As a reminder, your leadership DNA is the unique combination of values, themes, and strengths that you bring to the table to powerfully engage and execute your work effectively. The third step in identifying yours is to discover and integrate your unique strengths.

Why is this important? You’ve been getting your work done – and getting it done well – without paying much attention to strengths. What will being intentional about integrating yours do for you?

Here are 3 reasons why you want to pay attention to your strengths:

Quality of work. Your strengths are what allow you to do your best work. Have you ever heard of the term “being in flow”? Flow is the mental state of being completely immersed in an activity. You are so into what you are doing, so energized, that you don’t realize the amount of time that has passed. This is what utilizing your top strengths can do for you. Since your strengths are the natural wiring you possess for getting your best work done, they get excited and invigorated when you use them, supporting you in energy, focus, and creativity.
Positive self-identity. Your strengths are natural gifts that support your best self. How you feel about the contribution you are making to the world is very important to your self-worth and well-being. Using your strengths on a consistent basis reinforces who you are at your best and the value you bring. It’s a natural motivator to continue moving forward with purpose, because you experience feeling grounded and aligned as you show up in the world when you operate from your natural strengths.
Health and well-being. Your strengths are hungry. If you don’t feed them, they get cranky. It actually takes more effort for you to work without coming from your top strengths. There are many of you reading this who operate consistently with your “non-strengths.” When you do this, you spend a dollar in personal energy to get a penny of outcome in return. Doing so can cause stress, low energy, difficulty in focusing – and over time, burnout. Meanwhile, while you are neglecting your top strengths, they grow frustrated. They beg to be used, and this plea can come disguised as irritability and overwhelm as you go about your work. Who needs that?!

So how do you identify and integrate your own strengths?

First, to identify them… There are some respected assessments in discovering your strengths, and I have used them in my work. Whatever the assessment you choose, be sure it is reputable and tested for validity (how accurate is it in the research world?). One excellent free resource I use with clients is the VIA Strengths Survey, which allows you to discover top character strengths – strengths that are valid not only for your work, but also for the rest of your life. Character strengths mesh well with your life themes (last week’s focus) to shape how you fuel your work when you are at your best.

And now, to put your top strengths to work. Being intentional means to flex and practice, and there are several ways to do this. Here is one approach that works extremely well for the beginning stages of integration. I’d advise running through your top five strengths twice with this method to firmly increase awareness and begin to firm up your strengths approach:

Selecting one strength weekly, journal who you are as leader, at your best, when you exercise this strength.
Then, review your calendar’s upcoming meetings, projects, and conversations, and ask yourself how you will use this strength in the interface.
Debrief each evening, and ask yourself how you did, congratulate yourself on being more intentional, ask yourself what learning you gleaned, and how you will approach the same next time.

What is your biggest question about your own strengths? Join us in the LinkedIn discussion here.

Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

Mastering Your Inner Leader, Part I

Why aren’t you leading?

You’ve taken leadership boot camps and development programs, and read all the books. And there you are. In the same place. Month in, month out. Year in, year out.

Your influence is respectable, but it isn’t fantastic. You aren’t as effective as you could be, and you aren’t being recognized for your work (Promotion, anyone? Partner? Bonus Pool? Million Dollar Club?) What’s more, your income or sales isn’t increasing – yet you are working just as hard as ever, if not more.

The thing is, you are talented, and you know it. But it’s not showing like it should, in order to get the recognition and reward you deserve.

Nine times out of 10, I find that talented professionals overlook the one thing they should focus on, if they truly want to succeed. And it’s the one thing that can make all the difference.

I coached a vice president who had inherited great responsibility just the year prior. Susan had been a top performer in the company, and because the company did not want to lose her, she had been given a spot on the senior leadership team.

“I’m like a fish out of water,” Susan said over the phone. “And frankly wondering if I’ll ever be able to swim in deep waters with these people. I’ve tried schmoozing with them, I’ve held the same meetings with my team as they do with their teams. Sometimes, I even think I subconsciously try to walk and talk like some of them! But it’s not working.”

“Just a few months ago, all of senior leadership was given a leadership assessment. They had two group sessions to talk about it, and handed us books for reference. But knowing about leadership skills and strengths I have isn’t enough to get me anywhere. Help!”

Susan’s case is not atypical. A lot of top performers are promoted to leadership. After all – they performed well where they were before – they can certainly do it, again – right? Not necessarily.

From time to time, companies try to help their leadership teams by bringing on a consultant for assessments of all kinds and a follow-up training for a deeper dive. But testing and acquiring knowledge in specific areas is not enough to develop your leadership.

In fact, America spends more than $170 billion per year in training on topics of this sort, and results show that we are largely wasting money. Studies show that training participants take away about 27% of the learning provided, and then abandon it quickly because they don’t know how to integrate it.

So if copying other leaders doesn’t work, and taking a leadership skills assessment or a personality style diagnostic with some follow-up training isn’t making you a more effective leader, then what does work?

Mastering your inner leader.

Mastering your inner leader involves identifying your core values, and the particular strengths and gifts you bring to the table, so that you can learn to use them powerfully as you lead yourself and others. Only by mastering your inner leader will you stand out with confidence and make greatest impact.

You see, what works for the person down the hall will not necessarily work for you. And without knowing what you have to work with, you will be making decisions and taking actions without coming from a solid leadership foundation. And it will show.

Instead, you must discover what you have to work with, flex and fine-tune it, and the result is that you brand your leadership in a way that is genuine and most powerful.

How do you start?

I often start by having my clients identify their top core values. We then do an inventory in key areas of their life and work to see where they are doing well, and where they need to de-clutter or realign, so that they are living true to their values. I then help them begin to reinforce this learning with a “coach approach” so that the learning becomes a way of being. Over a period of 8-12 weeks, clients report less stress and tension, and more focus, productivity, and enjoyment.

I bet you aren’t surprised. Because coming from your center, from your core values and strengths, is authentic, you are more confident, you feel more energized, and you produce your best.

In my next article, Part II, I’ll talk about a unique way that you can identify life themes and strengths to build on mastering your inner leader.

Meanwhile, please join me in our LinkedIn group for more discussion on this topic.

How do you integrate your values in your work?