As a leader, your strengths and weaknesses will dictate your leadership style. Understanding the strengths of your team members will ensure they feel valued and fulfilled in the roles they are given.
This is a very important part of being a leader.
In this episode, I’m discussing the strengths of your team and knowing your role. Ideally, you’ll have ⅔ of your role in your sweet spot and use your strengths, and ⅓ will be the tasks that you have to do as a leader (that you may not love).
Identifying and championing strengths is a very central topic within positive psychology. As a volunteer life saver, we have a meeting before each shift where we identify everybody’s role by examining their strengths. This way, we’re making sure that every task is covered by the best possible person so, in an emergency, everybody knows what to do.
I’ll explore the science behind strengths, the fulfilment we attain by using our strengths, and how to identify the strengths in your team and in yourself as a leader.
Check out my free mini-course here for 5 questions to ask yourself before hiring your first (or next) team member. We’ll look at your business model, leadership style and how to decide what you can delegate before you hire.
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In episode at two of the podcast today will be talking about strengths and knowing your role and the strengths of your. Our team. When we're talking about Positive Psychology strengths is. A really important topic. I'm going to tell you a bit of a story through surf.
Lifesaving that might help display this a little bit better. I have a monthly shift as a volunteer surf life saver. One of my many lives. At the beginning of each shift, we pull everyone together for a team brief to talk about the surf conditions. To check updates, but most importantly, we talk about the team.
There are a lot of different roles that need to be filled. So we map it out on a whiteboard before starting our shift, we document the answers to questions like: if there's a rescue situation who are our strongest people on rescue boards and tubes. Who are our first aid responders who are our IRB. Our boat driver and their crew member who coordinates a rescue from the sand. And probably the big one who makes sure we're all alert and sufficiently caffeinated. So this briefing. It does a couple of things for the team. This briefing does a couple of things for the team. It's important to know everyone's strengths before an emergency, so we know who to rely on. If something does happen. And it also helps everyone. On the team to feel valued for their strengths. So understanding your personal strengths is important, not only for your development, but also if you're hoping.
To grow a team and step into a leadership role. Your strengths and your weaknesses will dictate your leadership style. And personal reflection on all the things that I've just been speaking about creates awareness. So you can show up as the best leader you can for for your team. But also understanding the strengths of your team members is crucial. So you can slot everyone into roles that they truly thrive in. So, for example, it wouldn't be a good outcome. If someone was to drive the boat that didn't actually have the certain qualifications they need. Or maybe hadn't even turned on the motor before. When we're looking at a surf lifesaving.
My skill is not on a board rescue. Something that I am very skilled at is managing a rescue from the sand. I know the team well, I know how everything goes together and I'm very calm under pressure. So putting me me in that position of managing things from the sand is the best outcome for the team.
The other thing is to think about where you want to stretch that might be outside your strengths. So something that I do, I want to work on is my board rescue technique. Now the science behind strengths, it shows that when we use our strengths, we have a more significant, positive impact on others. Which improves our relationships. it enhances wellbeing and happiness. So basically when we feel fulfilled and valued, We perform better in our many roles and we live happier lives. How's that for good vibes.
So thinking about strengths, how can you apply this in your life. Thinking about your team, what are some of the strengths that your team has? Is it comfort with talking in front of a group of people? Is it being organized? Is it making sure that nothing ever gets missed from that list of checklists of what needs to get done.
Talk to your team, find out what they love, where they love to thrive. I often say to people that you want to get two thirds of your role in your sweet spot, the things that are your strengths, what you love doing, and you thrive. And then one third of your role to be a mixture of kind of the crappy tasks that we all have some crappy tasks that we have to do. But also the stretch. Sometimes when we talk about strengths, people say, well, that's not my strength. Therefore, I don't do it. And that's not exactly correct either. It's important to keep on learning and stretching and growing as well. So. Looking at your role, how can you get two thirds in your sweet spot? Your zone of genius. And one third, that's that stretch, but also notice that we're never going to have the ideal perfect job with everything we love in it. So just recognizing that falls in that part of the one third. So where could this work for you and your team and perhaps in life for you to work on your strengths.
If you are a small business and this episode has got you thinking about your team and your strengths with your team and how to build it. You might be interested in that the free mini course that it is available on my website. It's five questions to ask yourself before hiring your first or next team member so that's even if they're a contractor casual or full time.
In this mini training, you will be able to discover what sort of business model you should be looking at, whether that's a solo, a hero, or an agency model, as well as your leadership style. Yes. Even if you don't think you have one or you've feel because you don't have a team, you don't have a leadership style. I guarantee you, you do.
It will also talk about how you can decide what you need to delegate before you hire. So you can jump on the link in the show notes and download that free mini course and help get yourself set up to hire more staff or get better plans around the team you will already have