5 steps leaders can take to unleash their team’s strengths

By Tyana Owings

It is not unreasonable to say that most of us in leadership probably got there because we were really good as individual contributors, and someone saw potential in us to lead others.

Alternately, and statistically more likely, we were thrown into leadership in the hope we could duplicate ourselves or, at the very least, keep things moving along and it was an adventure in “just figure it out” as a new leader.

Zenger/Folkman has conducted research that most managers do not receive any kind of training for their first 10 years in leadership. It is a common gap in us as leaders that we do not know how to truly unleash our team’s strengths.

We may know how to lead a function, but not necessarily how to lead and unleash the people doing the work – moving beyond the day-to-day tactical grind to a thriving, highly collaborative, well-oiled machine as a team.

Tyana Owings

Here are five steps that you as a leader can take to help unleash the hidden talent in your teams.

First, do not assume you are the smartest person in the room. In fact, you are probably not.

Your job as a leader is not to be the subject matter expert of all the things. Your job is to facilitate a team of experts and combine their expertise to create something amazing.

The further up the leadership ladder you go, the less of a subject matter expert you are as you become further from the day-to-day work.

Your role as a leader is strategy, vision, inspiration, motivation – not to be the tactically smartest person.

Let your people teach you and let them do their thing, which leads to …

Assume the best from your team. Do not assume mistakes were made by the team because they were lazy. Assume it is because they tried something new and celebrate that.

Do not assume new ideas will not work. Again, you are not necessarily the expert, and they may have a better idea for how to approach something than you may have done.

Assuming the best from your team raises the level of psychological safety and trust while also raising the bar of quality and what the team can produce together.

Know your team’s strengths. This does not just mean what they do tactically that is incredible – although that is definitely important. But know what their strengths are as a human being: what comes so naturally and easily it is almost like breathing.

For example, who is it that can get any group of people on board with a new idea? Who will not miss any details that could come back and mess things up later? Who likes to go dig into the research and will make sure the data is there for decision making?

Consider how you celebrate and leverage these strengths. Not sure what your team’s strengths are? You are definitely not alone in that.

Using proper tools can identify strengths and provide tips for how to leverage them can really help.

Celebrate those strengths and get out of the way. It is one thing to acknowledge that you are not the smartest person in the room, but if you do not know how to let go of things and entrust them to your team based on what motivates them and their natural strengths, it does not really matter.

Learn how to delegate and provide support and coaching. Do not micromanage – that is a quick way to derail trust and cause people to put up walls.

Focus on continually developing their strengths. In his research, Marcus Buckingham reports that we grow most in our areas of greatest strength.

There are neuroscientific explanations for this, but as leaders, we should move past trying to develop “areas of opportunity” and instead focus on developing strengths.

That is where our people will be happiest and most fulfilled, and our organizations will see the most benefit from their work.

Tyana Owings is director of people at Cloverleaf, Cincinnati, Ohio. Reach her at tyana@cloverleaf.com.