The Benefits of Leading a Strengths-Based Team

A strengths-based team is a group of imperfect but talented contributors who are valued for and invest in their strengths. They recognise that they need one another to realise individual and team excellence.

Gallup research has demonstrated that a team that focuses on strengths every day has 12.5% better productivity and generates 8.9% more profitability.

What do strengths-based teams do? 1) Each team member knows and intentionally uses his/her own unique strengths; 2) team members know and appreciate each other’s strengths; and 3) they combine their strengths with other team members to achieve success.

There is a lot of focus on increasing diversity in teams, particularly at senior levels in organisations. Often the focus is on gender, ethnic, disability and/or sexual orientation diversity.

However it is just as important to have a team that contains individuals with different ways of getting things done (i.e. executing), influencing others, building relationships and thinking. These are the four domains of strengths identified by the Clifton StrengthsFinder self-assessment.

A strengths-based leader will want to have a team with a broad spread of strengths across the 4 domains. S/he will want to enable and encourage the team to combine and harness the collective power of their strengths.

Like all forms of diversity, unless differences are recognised, valued and harnessed, diverse strengths on a team can be a source of tension and conflict and indeed can lead to a team becoming less rather than more effective.

Let’s look at the following snapshot of a team. We have just picked each person’s Number 1 strength for ease of illustration:

John has Activator as his top strength whilst Jane has Deliberative. John is likely to want to move to action. He will have limited patience for the team spending much time talking, thinking and planning. He is likely to be saying, “Let’s get going”. He will be happy working out the overall plan step by step through action. As Activator is an Influencing theme, he is also likely to be encouraging other team members to move forward with him.

Jane will also want to move forward as Deliberative is an Executing theme; she also wants to get things done. However she will want to have worked through the risks and “what ifs” of the overall plan before taking the first step. She is likely to be more cautious than John.

Manish has Positivity (a relationship building theme) as his top strength. He might think that Jane is being unduly negative by worrying about all the things that could go wrong with the plan. He is likely to be highly optimistic and may even brush over obvious obstacles in his desire to focus on the positive. He and John could be pushing the team to decide so that they can move forward together. Manish could be seen as being unrealistically optimistic by Jane and Pernille. Jane may see John’s approach as irresponsible because he has not thought through all the risks and obstacles.

Pernille has Analytical as her top strength. She is likely to be fact based and data driven. She will be able to boil issues down to their key essence. She will want every statement by her colleagues to be “provable” with hard evidence. She may come across as critical and Manish could find her to be unduly negative. Pernille could become frustrated with Jane as she wants to prepare for every possible risk in the plan whereas Pernille will be focused on those risks that really matter. John could be frustrated with Pernille if she continues to ask for more data and evidence before making a decision.

Each of these team members has real value to offer to the team. Janet can ensure that the team does not make big mistakes and John will be providing energy to move forward. Manish can keep people encouraged and motivated even when faced with challenges. Pernille will ensure that the decisions are grounded in fact and data. She can also ensure that the team focuses on the things that really matter.

If this team is lead in a collaborative way, where each team member understands the value of the different strengths that his/her colleagues can bring to the party, this team can move forward responsibility, collaboratively and with optimism.

The role of the team leader is many-fold in this context. Firstly the team leader needs to understand his/her own strengths profile and consciously look to complement this when recruiting the team. For instance if the team leader has a majority of Influencing themes in his/her top strengths, s/he will want to ensure that there are other members of the team with strong Thinking, Executing and Relating themes.

Secondly, the team leader needs to understand the individual strengths of team members as well as the team’s combined strengths profile. S/he will know how to organise the team’s work to maximise the benefit from the team’s complementary strengths and to overcome any gaps or blind spots that might exist. For instance Jane and Pernille could be asked to partner together to come up with a “risk plan” for the Top 3 risks. Pernille will be able to help Jane to analyse the risks and decide on the Top 3. Then Jane will be able to identify solutions to enable the team to minimise the chance of those risks materialising when executing the plan.

Thirdly the team leader will be using the language of strengths with the team every day. S/he will also be identifying opportunities for team members to play to their respective strengths and to invest in learning & growth opportunities that hone their strengths even further.

Individuals who play to their strengths and team members who “get to do what they do best every day” cultivate energising places to work. Gallup research has demonstrated that people who focus on their strengths are 3 x more likely to report having an excellent quality of life. In addition, less than one-third of workers say that they are engaged at work. People in teams that focus on their strengths are 6 x more likely to be engaged at work.

Do you want to lead a team where your colleagues are engaged and energised by being able to “do what they do best” more often? If so, then becoming a strengths-based leader is a good step for you.

I am an Executive Coach/Mentor and a Gallup certified strengths-based professional.

If you would like help to become a strengths-based leader contact me on ad@annemariedurbin.com