The two secrets great leaders know
Just because someone’s business card has a fancy title on it does not automatically mean they are a great leader. Great leadership is borne from within and it comes from knowing these two important things.
- Great leaders know their strengths. They know their exact role in tackling tough projects, managing teams or even fixing problems. The skill of knowing your strengths is often something that is learned over time.
If you are having trouble identifying yours, try this easy exercise. For the next full week, keep a daily journal of how you spent each day at the office. What are the particular things you worked on that day? What did you really resist working on? What made you mad? What made you excited and most energized? The answers to these questions will help you identify where your strengths lie and where you are most valuable to the organization.
Why is it important? Good leaders who know their talents and gifts know how they contribute to a team and make an organization better. Discovering your strengths and the strengths of your team will help you know where to invest resources to continue to develop those strengths and make the credit union better.
Knowing your core strengths is important to also help you identify your weaknesses, which leads me to the second thing great leaders know…
- Great leaders know their weaknesses. Think of the worst boss for which you have ever worked. It caused you to hate your job and, more importantly, decreased the overall quality of your life. “Leaders” who only focus on their or their team’s weaknesses kill employee empowerment and engagement.
The worst leaders in history have one trait in common: they think they are good at everything, try to do everything on their own and often act like they are smarter and better than everyone else. Working for someone like this is a nightmare where your days are often filled with anxiety over potentially making a mistake or even worse – never being given the chance to excel and do work that excites you.
Why is it important? Because good leaders know their strengths, they also know what they aren’t so great at as well. Good leaders focus on their own strengths and hire rock star teams around them to fill in the gaps. This makes the credit union that much more successful because this philosophy of empowerment and trust trickles to all areas of the organization.
One of the best things you can do for yourself is to do the work of discovering your own strengths and weaknesses. You’ll be more fulfilled, a better teammate and a better leader because you’ll have a team who trusts each other all doing what they are best at in order to come together to make the credit union great.
“Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.” -Oprah Winfrey
