When your strengths become your weaknesses

Caution: what you do best could land you in a heap of trouble.

Fashionable advice to focus on strengths stems from a trend toward the positive in leadership development. Accentuating one's assets, experts say, is more powerful than shoring up weakness.

The growing fields of strengths-based leadership and appreciative inquiry promote a focus on one's natural gifts and talents. Even psychology has taken a liking to the sunny side of life. The field best known for unveiling the skeletons in our closets now embraces "The Science of Happiness."

But don't hop aboard the optimistic express just yet. Check out the limitations of the strengths movement before donning those rose-colored glasses.

What counts as a strength, anyway?

In "Now, Discover Your Strengths," the book that popularized strengths-based leadership, authors Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton characterize strengths as "consistent, near perfect performance in an activity." Your strengths are the things you once did as well on the playground as you now do in the boardroom things you could hardly do poorly if you tried.

Beyond that, though, the definition of a strength is vague at best. Experts define strengths differently some focusing on what you do, others on how you think, others on aspects of your character. The distinction becomes significant when leaders use their so-called strengths to justify ill-advised actions, avoid change, or marginalize people around them who don't fit some idealized type. To some degree, what counts as a strength depends on who you ask.

What are the benefits of strengths-based leadership?

Two main benefits of a strengths approach to leadership include excelling easily in the areas of your strengths and being able to form teams with diverse sets of talents. "If we first understand ourselves, who we are and how we operate, we can find others to round us out," says Albert Vicere, professor of Strategic Leadership at Penn State University. That strategy has produced such powerhouse teams as Michael Dell and Kevin Rollins, and Bill Hewlett and David Packard partnerships in which somewhat opposite but complementary personalities not only leverage the best in each other but prevent either from becoming a stylistic tyrant.

What strengths-based leadership can't do, however, is temper strong parts of one's personality that may not be so positive. Just because it comes naturally to be aggressive doesn't justify the tactics of a bully. The benefits of strengths-based leadership are limited to their positive effects.

What are the drawbacks?

The trouble with concentrating on strengths is that it can make people myopic. A single-minded insistence on the way you've done things successfully in fact, the way that has made you successful can boomerang if your style lacks balance.

Robert Smith, who owns a PR firm outside of Chicago, found himself on the horns of this dilemma when his cutting-edge creativity suddenly backfired. "My client came from a conservative background in a conservative business. I wanted him to make noise and stand out!" Smith was unable to balance his originality with the practicality the client needed, ultimately leading Smith to lose a multi-million dollar deal.

Like many leaders, Smith discovered the central drawback of strengths-based leadership: any strength, expressed to the extreme, can become a weakness.

How do I keep my strengths from backfiring?

So how do people reach the heights of strengths-propelled success without setting themselves up for a fall?

Linda Finkle, a leadership consultant in the Washington, D.C. area, says asking honest, perceptive team members for feedback can keep you from going over the top. "When we are under stress, when we don't have enough energy, or feel like it's just not worth it, the volume on our strengths gets turned up too high."

Finkle gives an example of a client whose greatest strength was being the kind of leader who can be counted on to get a job done. Unfortunately, Finkle says, her "domineering, Attila-the-Hun attitude" in a "sleepy, quasi-country-club organization" led to morale problems that sapped the company's time and resources. With an outside perspective, Finkle suggests, she may have learned to tailor her style to the culture.

Forming a "brain trust" (a team in which many different strengths are represented) also brings flexibility and balance to any situation, according to Chris Cox of Reno's Emergenetics, which provides thinking- and behavioral-preferences profiles for leaders. She recommends becoming familiar with your strengths so you can balance them with the people around you.

The key is to avoid strengths-based tunnel visio, a limiting perspective that can result in a lack of awareness or a false sense of security.

So what role should strengths play in leadership?

The savvy leader knows how to drive full-tilt without being reckless. That means being self-aware, informed, and cautious all at once.

"I don't think you can focus one hundred percent of your attention on what's going right. Sugar coating things has the opposite effect. Things must be grounded in reality," says Tom Rath, author of How Full is Your Bucket.

Strengths-based leadership does offer insight to how people can maximize the gifts that come from Mother Nature. Your strengths may take center stage in your leadership - just make sure they don't become a solo act.

Joelle Jay is a leadership consultant, coach and professional speaker specializing in leadership and personal effectiveness, and the president of Pillar Consulting, LLC (www.pillar-consulting.com) in Reno. Contact her at Joelle@pillar-consulting.com.