Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

strengths

Three Reasons to Stop Focusing on Your Strengths and Weaknesses

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Three Reasons to Stop Focusing on Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Are you focusing too much on your weaknesses – or just as bad, are you focusing too much on your strengths?

You can actually arrest your own leadership development by doing so.

Here’s why:

Before the rising of the popular strengths-based coaching approach, workplace mentoring and coaching focused on helping its workforce to strengthen identified weaknesses. But we discovered after some time that the results were poor. In fact, employees were showing negative outcomes.

Focusing on weaknesses in leadership development can result in the following:

  • It can give a false sense of ineptitude and negative self-image. By giving weaknesses too much attention, the executive in question may begin to feel inept. Little discussion is made about what is going well, and so a negative self-image may begin to form, diminishing confidence.
  • By neglecting to bring strengths into the process, an imbalanced approach to getting the work done may actually result in an even poorer performance.
  • The weakness in question needs to be relative to the role the executive plays. Is the weakness in question hindering performance or hampering company goals? Or is it simply a result of a list that has no relevance to the job?

Face it – it’s more fun to focus on strengths! But there’s a drawback to swinging over to focusing on strengths, as well.

Focusing on strengths in leadership development can result in the following:

  • It can give the executive a false sense of competence, paving the way to neglect what might be hampering his or her best work.
  • By neglecting to address what is not working, focusing on strengths can give just as imbalanced an approach as focusing on weaknesses. In fact, focusing too much on developing a strength can actually render that strength a weakness. For example, if an executive has great ambition, developing that to the point of exaggeration can actually send wrong messages and behaviors and derail a career.
  • The strength in question needs to be relative to the role an executive plays, or it doesn’t matter how special that strength is! Is the strength key to performance? Is it aligned with company goals?

A balanced approach to your personal and professional leadership development with methodologies that are evidence-based – proven to work – is the first step.

If you are working on this to improve your performance and your career trajectory, make sure that what you are doing is actually relevant and supportive of where you are – and where you want to go!

3 Reasons Your SWOT Analysis Won’t Work

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Previously, I shared a 5-step power tool to help you and other executives finish your year strong. If you didn’t have a chance to see it, click here.

In the article, I mentioned in step 3 that you would want to do a “quick analysis of priorities and projects.” When most executives see this, they immediately think of going through what we call a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats).

In the world of business, SWOT analysis taught us a lot. But over time, those of us who lead and support leadership in their strategic planning process have recognized that this exercise may do more harm than good.

In fact, there are 3 main reasons why SWOT analysis can actually be counter-productive, and hold your enterprise back from reaching its full potential.

1. You lead with the analysis instead of leading with vision.

Beginning with looking back keeps us from effectively looking forward.

Leading with such an analysis roots the planning in today – reactive mode instead of proactive mode. Instead, if you start by reverse-engineering from your desired future by beginning with the end in mind, then you will step out of current perceptions and into the “what’s possible.”

Stepping into vision first will allow you to leave preconceptions and biases more easily behind, making the mental space for more creativity and innovation.

2. You focus on the weaknesses instead of the opportunities.

This, too, is rooted in past principles of leading by focusing on fixing what’s wrong. Language is powerful, and the very word “weakness” intimates that you must get better, improve, repair.

Instead of locking you and your strategic planning team into that kind of Titanic mindset, begin by reviewing your strengths. Remember first what you do well and the unique value you bring to the marketplace.

In addition, consider that what some call “weakness” may actually be reworded as a partnership opportunity. By reframing the term, we actually reframe the thinking of those involved in the process to more positive possibilities to explore.

3. You put the analysis results on the shelf.

Many enterprises don’t do anything with the information from the analysis they have performed. It sits on a shelf for a while, and then someone suggests doing one again, because the marketplace has changed. And these days, that could be a matter of months.

An unused analysis can be because there was no accountability determined with next steps, or leadership didn’t really have a sound strategic planning process that helped to move the team forward to take action. Or it may be for other reasons. But all limiting scenarios can be overcome with the right process, if you are committed.

The SWOT analysis was a first good beta for answering the question, “How are we doing?”

But there’s a better way to ask…well, better questions. I’ll be sharing that with you in my next article.

Meanwhile, whether you are about to undertake a strategic planning process, or you simply want to do a “spot check” with your team to see how well you are doing, remember to make the experience a motivating and enjoyable one – and then do something with it!

Before You Welcome 2017

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shutterstock_116575999a-New Year 2017

A Brief Check-In For Women Who Lead

As a woman who leads, you have probably experienced a full and exciting year. You have no doubt also had to deal with some unusual experiences, which have demanded quite a bit of your time.

What this means is that you may have set some important goals aside in order to accomplish the essential.

My wish for you is that you do not close the door on 2016 with regrets…that you take a moment to reflect on the things that you have accomplished. Because all too often, we focus on the things we didn’t do, diminishing the importance of our successes.

And instead of feeling excited about 2017, you’ll feel like you are in “catch up” mode – not a healthy, strategic approach, or a good feeling.

Assessing your 2016 wins is critical to having the right lens to set your goals for 2017.

So before you welcome 2017, here’s a brief check-in…

Celebrating Your 2016 Wins and Successes

Find a quiet corner and hot cup of something good, take a pen and paper, and settle in to answer the following questions (it’s important to hand write this in order to connect your head and heart):

  1. What are you most proud of, as you look back at 2016? (This may be personal or business – but it would be great to list one for each.)
  1. List 3-5 wins in your work – accomplishments or moves forward.
  1. What one thing would you like to congratulate yourself for, which others may or may not have noticed?
  1. What values do these accomplishments reveal?
  1. What natural strengths did you use in order to accomplish these things?
  1. What event or circumstance in your life this year opened the door for you to recognize your power or influence your future choices?
  1. What did you do well in 2016 that you would like to do more of in 2017?
  1. What do you need to make sure that your goal-setting process for 2017 is an exciting and positive one – one that energizes and excites you?
  1. Knowing you have put some things aside in order to accomplish “the necessary,” what is one thing you would like to focus on in 2017 that will make a difference to your year?

Taking time to reflect on these things is important to your success in 2017. I’d love to hear what this exercise brought up for you. Join me on LinkedIn to share, and for more discussion…

 

Patti Cotton helps women executives optimize their effectiveness in leading self, others, and enterprises. Her areas of focus include confidence, leadership style, executive presence, effective communication, and masterful execution. With over 25 years of leadership experience, both stateside and abroad, Patti works with individuals, teams, and organizations across industries, providing executive coaching, women’s leadership development, change, and conflict management. She is also a Fortune 500 speaker. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.