Whether it's music, sports or a sales team the best leaders focus on individual strengths to get the best results.
Every company wants to utilize their employees efficiently and raise overall productivity. In order to do that, the best leader’s focus should be on individual strengths and talents and to place the right workers on jobs they can succeed at.
Happy workers are productive and innovative as well as loyal. When a worker feels proud of their accomplishments they will work twice as hard. What manager doesn’t want that? Steve Roesler on All Things Workplace points out the benefits of using this strategy in one simple example.
Leaders Should Focus on Individual Strengths and Talents
Here is a way to start thinking about where to invest energy: Building Strengths or Overcoming Weaknesses. I’ll use a sales example.
Let’s say you are a sales rep who has a track record of getting appointments and a presentation with 60% of the people on whom you call. But your ability to close the sale is 25%. You have been a sales rep at different companies for 18 years.(Stick with me, I’ve been a sales manager). What you now know is that you’re strength lies in building the initial relationship and being able to get in front of the client. No matter how hard you’ve worked at closing the sale, you’ve never gotten above 25%.
As your sales manager, I’d start thinking: If I help you focus on getting appointments and presentations–and you improve just 10%–then I have someone who can get us in front of a prospective client 66% of the time. If I start focusing on your closing deficit and you manage to improve 10%, you still only get to a 27.5% success rate. So I decide that I –or another “closer” with a high percentage of success–will come along to the presentations.
Sometimes even the workers aren’t sure where they really belong, a good leaders focus should be on the individuals strengths. When a manager takes the time to observe and assess the work environment and speak to their employees regularly they promote honest, stress free communication. They also create more opportunities to bring out the best in each employee by allowing them to use their strongest skills.
