When Your Strength Becomes the Problem
Strengths are intrinsic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. These traits are easily recognizable as we operate in our various roles.
Weaknesses are our flaws, character gaps, and areas of incompetence. They require more honesty to evaluate. And even when we don’t self-assess, they’re often revealed by the feedback we receive from others.
Blindspots are areas we tend to over-rely on our strengths. And they sometimes look more like liabilities. Someone who values efficiency might come across as a micro-manager. So the strength (efficiency) actually gets masked by the blindspot (micro-managing). Our strengths are tied to what we value, and our blindspots show up when our values feel violated. The result can hurt our effectiveness in leading people and accomplishing goals.
Every strength has a blindspot. And in any role, the ability to discern between your strength and its corresponding blindspot is critical. It might look like this:
Knowing the line between focus and tunnel vision.
Recognizing when achievement becomes steamrolling over people to get the job done.
Knowing when brainstorming is one sidestep from vision drift.
For me, it's knowing when I’m moving from valuing excellence to demanding perfection. One side improves efforts and redefines what's possible. The other suffocates efforts by demanding it's never good enough.
If you’ve undergone any interview process, you’ve probably heard the classic: “what are your strengths and weakness” question.
But have you ever taken time to consider your blindspots?
Operating in your blindspot areas inadvertently undermines your leadership and trust across all roles: parent, leader, spouse, friend, etc.
Think about your blindspots. It may help to consider negative feedback you've received. If it’s been repeated, it’s at least worth considering instead of immediately dismissing. Maybe you value achievement, your list might look like this:
If your strength is achievement, the weakness might be pivoting smoothly when plans change. The blindspot could be a tendency to steamroll people to get the job done. But failing to pivot in the right ways could lead to more stalls down the road, even when you’re still checking things off the list.
So, what do we do once we know our blindspots? The key to avoiding them is to partner with people who excel in your weak areas. Continuing the example above, a next step would be to identify people who strategically see pitfalls and ask questions like: "What could you see getting in the way of this goal?" They'll likely be able to offer helpful ideas that’ll streamline execution.
People need you in your strongest areas. And you need them in theirs. So, learn to leverage strengths, avoid blindspots, and defer to people who excel in your weaknesses.
