We were nearing the end of our four-month coaching assignment when I asked him what he had learned. His response: “The power of giving away my strengths.”
Wow! What a terrific way to think about leadership and being a valued member of any team. Successful and professionally fulfilled people always believe in teaching. Teaching can be formal, like presenting at training events or leading teams in creative or strategic dialogues. Or, it can be informal, like holding spontaneous yet deep conversations. Teachers are usually exceptionally strong listeners; their higher perspectives displace their ego. Listening requires subordinating the ego and suspending judgment. Only those with advanced maturity have this capability.
One of our individual coaching objectives is for people to become profoundly aware of their personality strengths and build a strategic vision to employ their personality in the most creative and beneficial way.
Part of this process (and your process in TLT Coaching) is creating a Career Brand and a seven word or less Career Branding Statement. This particular leader is an open-minded, emotionally stable personality. His Career Brand is Rational, Imaginative. His branding statement is: “I inspire people to use facts imaginatively.”
Before coaching, he often used facts to win arguments and resolve conflict in his favor. Now, it’s not about winning or feeding his ego. It’s about helping others grow by encouraging them to think of bigger, more strategic ideas. What a positive shift in mindset! He didn’t have to change. He just needed to grow and mature his strengths – to move from the shadow to the light.
As a result of his newfound willingness to share his strengths, people who work for him are expanding the boundaries of what they can accomplish under his guidance. In addition, senior management has begun to notice the profound difference in his leadership style.
Spend time this week reviewing your Career Brand and Career Branding Statement.
Remind yourself what you’re really good at. Ask yourself how can you give this away to another person? For example, if you are super-conscientious and organized, can you offer to coach an imaginative but disorganized colleague? If you are great at networking, can you help out a colleague who is incredibly talented, but painfully introverted?
What’s critical is a sincere desire to give away your natural gift, to help another person in their journey.
Giving away your strengths is the most evolved and mature type of offering. When you expect nothing in return you are managing the ego’s need for recognition.
We have written quite a bit about culture and the importance of creating and participating in a learning and sharing organization. Giving away your strengths by helping others is the purest form of leadership. Even if you don’t hold a leadership role, giving away your strengths to team members can reap big rewards. The powerful law of reciprocity ensures that they will repay you in some form or fashion. Now that’s a win-win!