Is It Really Just About Strengths?

Good, short blog from Steve Roesler about the current fad of emphasizing strengths as a primary leadership tool and the importance of a more balanced approach.

His point is that people can hide behind their strengths either because they're lazy and don't want to learn new skills or simply don't like doing certain things. Often positional power is the subtext behind people telling others that they aren't "good" at doing certain tasks and therefore need others to do it for them. Anyone in HR has seen the person who is excellent at certain tasks but has the team skills of a piece of toast, yet their manager looks the other way because, in the short term at least, they don't want to rock the boat or simply lack the skills to give balanced feedback.

In the end, like all management ideas, it really comes down to a balanced approach to solving problems, learning as you go, and helping people with the art of working together.