From the time you were a little kid, you probably noticed that there were people who had totally different talents from you. It may have been very demoralizing if your brother played baseball better than you, or your sister got much better grades in math. In the Gallup StrengthsFinder analysis, there are 34 different leadership themes that correlate with success in business. Dr. Donald O. Clifton ran this longitudinal study at Gallup that interviewed over 20,000 leaders.
“After all this research, you might think that a team of scientists would find at least one strength that all of the best leaders shared. But when Clifton was asked, just a few months before his death in 2003, what his greatest discovery was from three decades of leadership research, this was his response:
A leader needs to know his own strengths as a carpenter knows his tools, or a physician knows the instruments at her disposal. What great leaders have in common is that each truly knows his or her strengths – and can call on the right strength at the right time. This explains why there is no definitive list of characteristics that describe all leaders.”*
In Strengths based Leadership Tom Rath and Ray Conchie continue Dr. Clifton’s work by identifying four domains of leadership strength: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building and Strategic Thinking. None of us is excellent at all of these, yet they are all needed to run a successful organization. If you know where you shine, you can build a team that rounds out your leadership style.
As a Vistage Chair, I’ve seen owners become leaders as they play from their strengths and build a team that covers all the bases. Not everyone is the pitcher. Some lead from center field. When we allow ourselves to be ourselves, all sorts of opportunities for success open up.
What are you really good at, and how can you get to the outcomes you want from where you are?
* Strengths Based Leadership , P. 13.
photo of Vistage CE group 58 retreat