Research shows that the most cohesive and successful teams have a diverse and complementary range of strengths. But team effectiveness is not just about the quality of its component parts; it’s also about how effectively these parts – particularly team members’ strengths – are combined (and optimised) to deliver planned results.
With the new book Optimize your Strengths, team leaders can get practical insight into what it really takes to bring about the best in their teams. You can follow the journey of a leader who transitions from a draining deficit-focused management strategy to an energising strengths-based method that unlocks high performance for himself and for his team.
This is a journey of awareness and action, which starts with the leader finding his own leadership edge and understanding what drives him to perform at his best so he can then inspire and motivate others to do the same.
Here are my top 3 take-aways from the book for optimising the strengths of your team:
1. What you focus on changes what you see.
And what you see impacts the direction you choose to take, for yourself and for your team. Focusing on what works rather than just what is broken is a key step in this journey; you embark on a path of possibilities (see Path of Possibility™ model) that opens up your scope of thinking and feeling and leads to increased confidence and better results. Fostering a more appreciative and positive team climate, where team members acknowledge, recognise and celebrate what is already great is essential for optimal performance.
2. You set the tone.
This shift in focus starts from the top: the leader sets the tone. The more aware team leaders are of their own strengths – what drives and energises them – the more they develop agility to use strengths more effectively, to stretch and to balance them to mitigate performance risks. This strengths-awareness is inspiring and contagious; it motivates others in the team to look for their own strengths and also to spot strengths in others around them, driving collaboration and productivity.
3. You need a toolkit!
You need the right tools to lead a winning team. With Optimize your Strengths you get access to free leadership tools to help you maximize your own strengths, develop your leadership edge and optimise the strengths of your team. Optimizing your team’s strengths involves not only understanding how to combine them together effectively but also creating mechanisms to ensure that the team has the right habits in place to translate team members’ strengths and efforts into achievement, engagement and innovation.
Get your copy of Optimize your Strengths today to start this journey for yourself and for your team!
Ana Loback, Consultant
