Posted on October 4, 2015 by James Scouller
Several readers of The Three Levels of Leadership have written to ask: what do you think about strengths-based leadership? So I thought this would be a good subject for the blog, but before answering this question, it’s worth summarising the key ideas of strengths-based leadership. They are as follows:
Major Ideas
Based on extensive research by Gallup, the authors of Strength-Based Leadership (SBL), Tom Rath and Barry Conchie, put forward these conclusions:
- The best leaders know their distinctive strengths, keep sharpening them and know which ones to use at the right time. They also know their weaknesses.
- They believe they don’t need to be well-rounded and don’t try to be, but they do believe their team must be well-rounded. So they surround themselves with people who offset their weaknesses, put them in the right roles –meaning roles that play to their colleagues’ strengths – and create a balanced team. A “balanced team” covers all four SBL strength domains: (1) executing (2) influencing (3) relationship building (4) strategic thinking. In this way they both cover their weaknesses and motivate the team members.
- They understand and deliver what their followers need: trust, compassion, stability and hope. Thus, they care about people, win their trust and inspire hope and optimism.
With these three ideas in mind, I offer four thoughts:
Thought 1
- I wouldn’t disagree with these three conclusions.
- However, as good as the SBL body of work is, it typifies a common approach to developing leaders: “Here is what the best leaders do, copy them and you will succeed.” The trouble is, this thinking ignores a common reality buried deep within our psychology: our limiting beliefs. These beliefs spawn habits that can and usually do block our ability to apply good insights like the SBL conclusions.
- Thus, I’d point out that applying these truths is easier said than done. You see, there is a gap between grasping these insights intellectually and using them under pressure.
- Why? It’s because our most powerful subconscious limiting beliefs can:
- Block or undermine our awareness of – and interest in knowing – our strengths and weaknesses, particularly the latter. This is because some leaders find it too uncomfortable to consider their weaknesses seriously, especially if they harbour ideas (and many do) that they are not good enough.
- Block or undermine our resilience under pressure, making it hard to embody the stability and hope that followers want. And with reduced resilience, prolonged pressure and repeated adverse events, we can be tempted to act selfishly by criticising, blaming or avoiding responsibility, causing others to distrust our motives. This is, of course, the opposite of what SBL leaders are supposed to do.
- Block or undermine our ability to connect with others emotionally, feel compassion and show we care. I explained in chapter 7 of The Three Levels of Leadership that many leaders struggle to care about others because, without realising, they’re spending all their emotional energy defending themselves against their greatest fears – for example, of failing, of not being up to the task, of being ignored by people they see as more important, or of being rejected.
- Block or undermine our readiness to surround ourselves with people who can offset our talent gaps and do what we can’t. Leaders (and there are many) who fear being challenged by others or letting people who know more than them question their aims and ideas will be loath to cover their weaknesses by bringing in people who have strengths they lack. It’s a solid idea in theory, but working with clients I’ve found it won’t happen unless leaders feel good about themselves. After all, this idea of creating a balanced team has been around – and backed by research, especially by Meredith Belbin’s work on team roles – since the 1970s. But nearly 50 years on, the Belbin team roles idea hasn’t become mainstream. Why? Not because it’s no good. Mainly, in my view, because many leaders don’t accept that they need a well-rounded team – and won’t until they let go of their key limiting beliefs.
- In short, our limiting beliefs can block the strengths-based approach to leadership. How do you get beyond them? By recognising and dissolving these beliefs through practising self-mastery, perhaps with an executive coach’s help. Self-mastery is a key element of what I call “personal leadership”: that is, growing one’s ability to lead.
Thought 2
- Putting together a group with balanced talents is important, but all groups – balanced or not – go through sticky patches because when adults get together to do joint work, unhelpful things can happen. Like conflict, cliques, groupthink and under-contributing (technically known as “social loafing”). And if no one else steps in – even if they have the underlying talent to do so – leaders must make the first move. After all, leaders cannot delegate their responsibility to make sure there is leadership (in other words, to make sure the group addresses all four dimensions of leadership).
- This ability to step in demands behavioural flexibility. It doesn’t mean leaders must be good at everything, but it does mean they must be ready and able to stretch their behaviour when the group needs it. Thus, avoiding certain so-called behavioural weaknesses – like a wish to avoid conflict – can be a problem … which takes us to thought 3.
Thought 3
- I would agree there are some weaknesses that are difficult to develop – like the ability to be an out-of-the-box thinker – because they demand certain innate strengths (or “talents” to use the SBL authors’ word).
- But there are behavioural weaknesses – a better word is “rigidities” – which may appear innate or immutable, but aren’t. In my experience, it’s worth working on these so-called weaknesses because a good coach can help leaders dissolve the blocks and increase their behavioural flexibility. In this way they can apply the lessons of strength-based leadership when they otherwise couldn’t.
Thought 4
- Understanding and delivering followers’ four needs (trust, compassion, stability and hope) does, it seems to me, imply a certain well-roundedness that the strength-based leadership model rejects. Caring about people (compassion), being resilient under pressure (providing stability and hope) and displaying the kind of presence that means they never behave selfishly or fail to do what they said they would do (thus winning others’ trust) is easy to describe and hard to do. In my experience, it needs a degree of psychological wholeness – or well-roundedness – that’s rare in leaders who haven’t worked on what I call personal leadership, especially self-mastery.
- So while I agree that the best leaders understand and deliver their colleagues’ four needs, I wonder whether this part of the SBL model is consistent with the “there’s no need to be the well-rounded leader” dictum of strengths-based leadership.
Overall – and putting my fourth thought aside – I’d argue that if they wish to apply the well-researched, valid insights of strengths-based leadership, most leaders should work on their personal leadership, especially self-mastery. Otherwise SBL will remain theory.
The author is James Scouller, an executive coach. His book, The Three Levels of Leadership: How to Develop Your Leadership Presence, Knowhow and Skill, was published in May 2011. You can learn more about it at www.three-levels-of-leadership.com. If you want to see its reviews, click here: leadership book reviews. If you want to know where to buy it, click HERE. You can read more about his executive coaching services at The Scouller Partnership’s website.
Posted in Models, Styles & Philosophies, Questions & Answers, Self-Mastery | Tagged James Scouller, leadership, leadership books, self-mastery, Strength-based leadership, the three levels of leadership | No comment
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