| | | View this email online if it doesn't display correctly |
| | While leveraging a strengths-based approach to leadership development is currently ‘in vogue' - minimizing or avoiding pivotal weaknesses is very risky. Leaders can gain big advantages by improving on their ‘soft spots’.
|
|  |
So how is it that a strengths-based approach to leadership development and coaching can become a liability? Earlier this month, I was chatting with a seasoned CFO about the narrative 360 feedback results for one of her direct reports. She insisted that follow-up actions should focus exclusively on leveraging strengths identified from the feedback – not on the few ‘imperfections.’ While there’s definitely merit to leveraging strengths – failing to address pivotal weaknesses has potential for significant personal, professional and organizational downsides, to put it mildly.
As many of you likely know, the strengths-based approach first appeared in the mid-1990s in the social work field but quickly migrated to other industries and applications. In 1999 Markus Buckingham and Curt Coffman introduced the approach to the business world in their bestseller ‘First, Break All the Rules.’ This was followed in 2001 by another (even more popular) bestseller authored by Buckingham and Donald Clifton titled ‘Now, Discover Your Strengths’. The strengths-based approach had been adopted and soon became.... (cont'd) |
| | | | Around The Web: Noteworthy News & Research
How Leaders Can Cultivate Patience in an Impatient World
In our world of overnight delivery, fast food and overall instant gratification, many of us don’t even give ourselves the time to read a novel. Instead, we prefer to read short articles or watch YouTube clips. When our needs aren’t met immediately, we become frustrated. The pandemic has made us realize, even more so, that patience is one of the more difficult challenges of being human. For those of us who weren’t born with patience, the good news is that patience can be learned. Here are nine ways to exercise your patience muscle to improve your decision-making abilities for leadership as well as other life roles.
Read full article »
Will the Pandemic Reshape Notions of Female Leadership?
Countries with women in leadership have suffered six times fewer confirmed deaths from Covid-19 than countries with governments led by men. Unsurprisingly, the media has swelled with stories of their pragmatism, prowess — and humanity. Will these positive outcomes influence our collective readiness to elect and promote more women into power? Stories of strong female leaders succeeding through this crisis could lead to a change in the overarching narrative of what a strong leader looks like. |
| | | | | © CYGNUS Management Consultants Inc.
300 - 1095 McKenzie Avenue
Victoria, BC, Canada V8P 2L5
|
| |
