Let Your Staff Shine

One of the most asked interview questions is, “What is your greatest weakness?” and I have never fully understood why. Is it to gauge our sense of self-awareness? Humility? Honesty? Is it to gain an understanding of what support the potential staff member may need? Are people using the answer to decide whether to hire someone? Why are we so concerned about people’s weaknesses? What in the world is the point?

I started my professional career in education where we spent a lot of time discussing and trying to address what we perceived to be our students’ weaknesses. We focused on reading scores and math tests and developed programs and curricula to fix what we determined needed fixing. As state and national testing became more prevalent, we designed our day-to-day teaching around righting what was wrong in order to get our students to a required score. Every student was expected to reach the same threshold and was largely taught the same things in the same way.

There is great debate regarding standardized testing, and it is not my aim to engage that discussion here. What I would like to address is the framework of addressing growth in a different way- in an evidence-based, strengths-focused way. Instead of spending so much time on trying to overcome our perceived weaknesses, what would happen if we dedicated our time and energy to discovering our strengths and amplifying those? What if we could do what we do best every day and finally have the opportunity to shine?

HELP YOUR STAFF SHINE BY FOCUSING ON THEIR STRENGTHS

In a strengths-based approach, the aim is not to fix what we think is wrong with people or focus on improving their weaknesses. Instead, the focus is on leveraging what person’s gifts and resources they already have to help them reach the goals they decide for themselves. This approach is more than a nice concept- it is an evidence-based one. When we focus on strengths, we allow people the opportunity to use what they have to get what they want. This is an effective way to support people’s growth whether they are clients or staff members, children or adults. We all respond better when we get the opportunity to demonstrate our value.

Employers can be close-minded when it comes to how they hire and how they try to develop their staffs once they do. Most commonly, they create a job description, hire someone to fill it and then keep them doing the same thing because that is what they were hired to do. There is little intentionality, investment and flexibility in determining where each staff member really shines and then providing an opportunity to do so. There is a resistance to add more work and a reluctance to be patient while figuring it all out. But this is what is required to determine and create space for people to do what they do best and to shine.

Gallup has studied the topic of staff strengths extensively, and they have found that people- in any field- who are given the opportunity to use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged at work.  Which should not be surprising. Think about what you do well. Don’t you enjoy doing it? Wouldn’t you prefer to spend your time doing something you feel successful at rather than something you don’t enjoy or struggle with? Makes sense, right?

The decision to focus on employee strengths has great and powerful implications in the workplace. By discovering and utilizing opportunities to use their strengths at work, staff are more likely to be engaged, perform better and stick around. Employees who feel successful and supported are more likely to stay; those who do not, won’t. Plus, you are then getting the absolute best out of everyone on your team because they are contributing what they do best to its success.

HOW TO HELP YOUR STAFF SHINE

As a leader, it is your responsibility to hire and provide opportunities for your staff to use their strengths to do what they do best every day and to shine. This will require intentionality, adjustment and a willingness to invest time into discovering what each staff’s gifts are and how they can most effectively be leveraged. This begins during your hiring process as you shift what you are really looking for in a candidate. It requires a thoughtful hiring strategy focused on the gifts that people bring, not the weaknesses you are so quick to ask about. Once hired, you must have a willingness to consistently check in with your staff to gauge how they are doing, how they are feeling and where adjustments need to be made to best match staff strengths and organizational needs. It is a time-consuming process, to be sure, but one that is justified in the results it will yield.

Think of everyone you supervise now. Can you easily identify their strengths? Can you confidently say that they have the opportunity to use those strengths everyday in their work? How much time are you investing in helping your staff deepen these strengths versus trying to improve what you perceive to be their weaknesses? How much energy are you giving to bolstering these strengths and the opportunity to use them for the betterment of your organization?

What about yourself? Are you given the opportunity to do what you do best every day? Where do you shine? Where can you create opportunities for yourself to do your best work and enjoy yourself while doing it?

HELP YOUR STAFF SHINE BY GIVING THEM THE SPOTLIGHT

In addition to creating opportunities for staff to utilize their strengths every day, you can help your staff shine by 1) recognizing them and 2) sharing their strengths publicly.

Currently, where is there opportunity for your staff to train others on their strengths? Where can others observe your staff doing what they do best so they can learn through example and modeling? How can you use staff strengths to help the rest of your team grow?

Further, how are you currently recognizing and appreciating your staff’s strengths? How do you acknowledge and thank them? How do you let others know about them? What opportunities do you create for staff to share their accomplishments and gifts with others?

HOW TO MEASURE IF YOU ARE LETTING YOUR STAFF SHINE

To begin improving your strengths-based culture, you need to start by understanding where you are. Luckily, Gallup has created a simple, research-based way to do this through their Strengths Orientation Index. This Index will help you gauge how well you are currently doing in creating space for your staff to shine. The index is comprised of four statements for staff to respond to:

1. Every week, I set goals and expectations based on my strengths.
2. I can name the strengths of five people I work with.
3. In the last three months, my supervisor and I have had a meaningful discussion about my strengths.
4. My organization is committed to building the strengths of each associate.

Ask each team member to respond to each of these statements and look for patterns. Where are you currently doing well as a leader to maximize your staff’s strengths and where do you need to grow?

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Giving your staff the opportunity to shine is not just a feel-good trick. It is a research-based strategy that results in higher staff engagement, performance and retention. Everybody wants the chance to feel that what they are doing is both valuable and valued. Creating and providing opportunities for your staff to shine by doing what they do best and then acknowledging them for it will create a team culture where performance is enhanced, and staff retention is increased.

If you already implement a strengths-based approach in your team leadership, examine ways to do so on a deeper and more impactful level. If you have not yet started to lead from a strengths-based approach, decide when you will start. Today seems a good a day as any…