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Find Your Strengths
My staff and I recently took a personality test. I love personality tests for two reasons: first, because they help me know myself better; and second, because I like reading the lists of strengths associated with my personality type. It’s a total confidence booster. I’ve never struggled too much with self-esteem, to be honest. After taking this particular test, a few of us were texting back and forth about our results in a group text and discovered that two of us had the same personality type.
“Isn’t this list of strengths amazing?” I posted. “I love this! Nailed it.”
Just after I sent my message, my personality twin sent one of her own: “That list of weaknesses! Wow . . . describes me so well!”
“What?” I replied. “There was a list of negatives?”
To be honest, I hadn’t even noticed that there were negatives because I was too busy looking at the positives. We shared a good laugh over it, mostly at my expense, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to be more aware of your strengths than your weaknesses. For me, at least, it’s a lot more motivating.
Self-awareness is about knowing your strengths and weaknesses, but leadership is primarily about influencing from your strengths. You can’t move forward if you are forever self-analyzing. Identify the skills or strengths you lack and either grow in those areas or staff them. But don’t stand there, gazing longingly through the window at the leadership gifts you wish you could have. You have your own gifts, and the sooner you discover them and put them to use, the easier and more effective your leadership will be.
Donald O. Clifton was an influential psychologist, educator, author, and researcher, particularly in the area of strength-based psychology. He dedicated much of his career to helping companies improve their businesses by focusing on their employees’ strengths. In Now, Discover Your Strengths, Clifton and coauthor Marcus Buckingham state this:
Our research into human strengths does not support the extreme, and extremely misleading, assertion that “you can play any role you set your mind to,” but it does lead us to this truth: Whatever you set your mind to, you will be most successful when you craft your role to play to your signature talents [strengths] most of the time.1
In other words, figure out what you are hardwired to be the best at, and work as hard as you can at that. You actually can’t be anybody you want to be, and you definitely can’t be everybody. You can only be yourself, which means the most effective use of your time is to pursue what you have the potential to be great at. Clifton and Buckingham go on to say:
To avoid your strengths and to focus on your weaknesses isn’t a sign of diligent humility. It is almost irresponsible. By contrast the most responsible, the most challenging, and, in the sense of being true to yourself, the most honorable thing to do is face up to the strength potential inherent in your talents and then find ways to realize it.2
There is no one personality, background, or mix of gifts that is perfectly and exclusively suited for leadership. But the traits least suited to your leadership are the ones you don’t have. Sometimes people hide behind what they think they are missing because it’s easier than using what they have. For example, they refuse to lead a committee because they aren’t good at speaking in front of groups, or they reject a new career opportunity because they don’t think they are smart enough to learn something new. But you can work with the traits you have. Are you an introvert? Then you’re in good company with creative innovators such as Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, and J.K. Rowling. Were you a poor student? So were John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, and Walt Disney. Did you have a difficult childhood? So did Oprah, Charlize Theron, and Jim Carrey. Have you failed or been rejected multiple times? Same with Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, and Jay-Z.
I’m not minimizing your challenges, because those things are very real, but I am saying that whatever those things are, they aren’t the whole story about you. You are empowered for leadership not by what you don’t have, but by what you do have. The only traits, skills, and advantages you can use are the ones you possess and develop, so don’t waste time wishing for all the other ones.
Identify Your Gifts
In order to use your leadership gifts, you have to identify them. Personality tests are a great tool, but they are just a start. And it’s worth keeping in mind that some of your gifts and strengths might not appear until many years down the road, which means you need to be continually assessing your gifts and how best to use them. Here are five questions you can ask yourself—and others—to help you pinpoint your gifts.
1. What Comes Naturally to Me?
When you look back to your childhood and young adulthood, what traits, interests, or abilities stand out to you? Were you always able to make people laugh? Constantly tinkering with technology? Fascinated by numbers and science? Captivated by beauty in art and nature? Did social skills or emotional intelligence seem easy for you? What creative skills did you learn quickly? How did you stand out from the crowd among your peers? All of those things could help you in leadership if you lean into them rather than longing for something you don’t have. Comparison is often a trap, but when used to identify your gifts, it can also help you to recognize where you have the potential to truly excel.
For example, I’m pretty good at talking. I have been since I was child, although I didn’t always see that as a positive (and my parents probably didn’t either). I’m not saying it’s easy to stand in front of a crowd or meet new people—sometimes it can be quite difficult—but it’s something I am able to do well and I enjoy. It’s not a coincidence that a large part of my job has to do with talking, whether in public or in smaller settings. Over the years, not only have I embraced opportunities to speak in public, but I’ve also worked on improving my speaking gifts. I’m also relatively good at basketball, but that one didn’t really take me anywhere. So, I mostly stick with talking.
Maybe you’re the opposite: you speak in public only when you have no other choice. Maybe you prefer to be in the background, to speak last in meetings, and to put other people on the stage, but you find yourself in a leadership position. The fact that you don’t thrive on public speaking doesn’t make you less of a leader—as long as you are using the gifts you do have to their greatest advantage.
2. What Do Other People Observe in Me?
It’s been said that fish don’t know there’s water. It’s so much a part of their reality that they can’t see it. A similar dynamic can happen with our gifts and skills—they’re so much a part of us that we can’t see them.
If you are naturally good at something, or if you’ve honed your skills in some area because you enjoyed it, you might not realize how talented you are. It feels natural and easy for you, and so you assume it feels natural and easy for everyone—that is, until other people point out that whatever it is doesn’t come easily for them. This is something unique to you.
What have other people observed in you over the years? What were you recognized for when you were a kid, a teenager, or a young adult? What natural traits or skills do people tend to observe in you now? If you don’t know, take the initiative and ask a few people to tell you what they’ve observed in you.
When trusted people in your life notice and affirm your gifts, listen to them. Resist the temptation to downplay your gifts. Denying what you’re good at isn’t humility, it’s just denial. True humility is recognizing who you are—nothing more, nothing less—ith gratitude and grace.
3. What Have I Learned by Trial and Error?
This is also known as failure, but “trial and error” sounds better. Trial and error is the process of trying things, failing, learning from failure, and trying again. And again. And maybe again. Learning by failure is an inevitable part of the human existence, but that doesn’t make it any less painful. No one likes to fail, but sometimes it’s the only consistent path to improvement. You might be lucky enough to get things right the first time in a couple of areas, but to err is human, so you should probably get used to it.
When it comes to determining your gifts, trial and error plays a key role. Why? Because you don’t start out knowing what you are good at. You have to try a lot of things a lot of times, which means failing a lot of times too. If you truly believe something might be part of your future, don’t give up just because you fail or aren’t good at it right away. On the other hand, it’s also important to stay open to the possibilities—it’s surprising how often life tricks us into doing things we would have never imagined ourselves doing, yet we turn out to be good at them and enjoy them.
Learning through trial and error is less about the error and more about the learning. In other words, you’re going to fail a lot. But where do you learn the most? Where do you grow, change, and try again, even if no one around you seems to care? More likely than not, you are gifted in that area, and it’s up to you to develop it further. For example, I can tell you the subtle difference between various cuts of shirts or kinds of shoes because I care about fashion; when it comes to auto mechanics, I can’t tell a transmission from an axle. I have learned through trial and error that I love fashion but couldn’t care less about cars.
4. What Do I Enjoy?
The best leaders have an innate desire to do what they’re doing. Many say they’d do it even if they weren’t paid for it, or they get so wrapped up in it that hours fly by and they hardly realize the passage of time. So, what is that for you? What do you have a desire to do? What would you do even if you weren’t paid for it? What makes time fly?
Even when you’re focused on doing what you enjoy, you might feel discouraged once in a while, but if it’s truly your calling, you should feel disappointed at the thought of giving it up. Something deep inside you will be drawn toward the challenge and the potential, and you’ll push through any resistance to accomplish it. Conversely, if you feel relieved at the prospect of not doing something, it’s likely time to move on or to delegate whatever it is. Enjoyment is often an indicator of talent.
5. What Works for Me?
If you have clear success in an area, if you feel the wind at your back, if you sense God smiling on you, chances are good you’re doing something right. Maybe you’ve heard the term “in your wheelhouse” to refer to something that is within your area of expertise. The term “wheelhouse” comes from the nautical world and refers to the location of a ship’s wheel. But it has also been used more recently in baseball to describe a batter’s strike zone—the area in which the player swings with the most force and effectiveness.3 When we say a task is in our wheelhouse, it means we’re good at it. It’s an area where we operate with force and effectiveness.
Some things are just in your wheelhouse. You might not be able to explain it, you might not have chosen it, you might even get tired of it, but you just know how to do certain things. And when you do them, they work, and you and everyone around you knows it.
I mentioned that I have always been a talker, but that doesn’t mean I always knew my calling was public speaking. I remember when I realized that, though, and it was because someone else pointed out my effectiveness and results. At the time, I had already been speaking in public for seven or eight years, mostly at youth events. One day, an older pastor in my city invited me to lunch. I was nervous, to be honest; I halfway assumed I had done something wrong. So I was surprised when he asked, “How did you become such a good speaker?”
I assured him I was not a good speaker, and I meant what I said. I knew how to throw a good afterparty, I told him. Although I spent a lot of time studying for my talks, I had never considered myself to be a particularly talented speaker.
“Yes,” he said, “you are a good speaker. I know you are, because my son comes home Sunday night after listening to you and repeats every word you said.”
At that moment, a light bulb came on in my head. I was good at this—not because I necessarily felt good at it, but because I was effective at it. And that realization made me want to work harder to get even better.
Everyone Is a Genius
When it comes to leadership gifts, I like to use the word “genius.” Genius isn’t some supernatural, magical, miraculous ability—it’s just an uncommon ability, a unique quality or aptitude for something. Someone who is a genius in a particular area is remarkably gifted in comparison to the average person. Albert Einstein was a physics genius. Bach was a musical genius. Kobe Bryant was a basketball genius.
The reason I like this word is because everyone is a genius if you just get to know them. Everyone has genius in their own way and in their own areas, and successful leadership requires tapping in to that genius—both your own and others’. You can call it gifting, skill, expertise, or calling, but at the end of the day, it’s simply a skill or quality that makes you remarkable.
“As soon as you find yourself in a role that requires you to play to one of your nontalents—or area of low skills or knowledge—a weakness is born.”
—Buckingham and Clifton
You might have genius in multiple areas, or perhaps in just one. Maybe your genius is social media, or graphic design, or communication, or hosting events, or reading people. Maybe your genius is surrounding yourself with other geniuses—motivating and caring for them and uniting them into a team. If you don’t know what your genius is, follow the steps above to find out. Then spend most of your time and energy on that.
This truth is not to be taken lightly. We can actually cause significant damage by attempting to operate outside of our genius or the areas in which we are gifted. Buckingham and Clifton explore this idea in-epth.4
Instead of wishing you were someone you are not or trying to be someone you will never be, learn what your genius is, lean in to it, and love who you are.
Learn to appreciate your strengths, your gifts, and your genius, and learn to appreciate those of others as well. That might mean taking a personality test, like I did with my team. It might mean working together for a while and seeing who fits where. And it might mean long and sometimes painful conversations about how to work together. Ultimately, the goal is not about who is bad at what (that is, the weakness list), but rather it is about who is good at what (the strength list). If you figure that out, and if you learn to work together and play to your strengths, you’ll be unstoppable.