Optimize Your Strengths

Use your leadership strengths to get the best out of you and your team

Dr. James Brook, Dr. Paul Brewerton, James Brook

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780857086938
• eBook ISBN: 9780857086969
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Discover your unique edge.

Each of us has our own set of strengths, abilities and skills that allow us to shine and deliver exceptional results. These are our underlying qualities that energise us and we are great at (or have potential to become great at). But how do you understand and build upon your strengths and how do you inspire others to do the same?

Optimize Your Strengths provides a proven strengths-based approach to achieving peak performance for you and your team. You'll discover your core strengths and learn how to use these to bring out the best in yourself and inspire passion, innovation and engagement in those you lead. Using the Stretch Leadership Model, leadership and organisational development experts, James Brook and Paul Brewerton, show you how to lead beyond boundaries and develop positive habits that drive you to continuously improve and take advantage of new opportunities.

Through a fictional narrative that brings the subject to life; follow the journey of Joe (a leader facing both personal and professional crises), as you learn to:

• Discover, analyse and grow you and your team's natural strengths and abilities in pursuit of a compelling vision
• Develop an energising and powerful leadership approach based on strengths, solutions and possibilities
• Use a Stretch Toolbox of six step-by-step models to uncover your leadership edge and grow into an inspiring leader
• Get hands-on experience working through chapter exercises on an accompanying website
• Take real action to continually enhance your strengths and improve your weaknesses

CHAPTER 1
The Leadership Edge: In which Joe comes to terms with his predicament and challenges his beliefs about leadership…

Joe hangs up the phone on Kelly, his new boss, and walks slowly to his office window. Gazing thoughtfully across the park, he focuses on the wilting flowers in the hanging baskets, the product of a hot, dry summer. Wondering why the park wardens have not watered them, he smiles wryly, realizing that his estranged wife would say, if only she was there:

“You're only worrying about the park wardens, Joe, because it's easier than worrying about your own problems…”

In that second, he feels the full weight of his predicament for the first time.

As the recently appointed European head of Tiger Online Recruitment, Joe faces many challenges. His phone call with Kelly confirms this. His attention is momentarily drawn to a mother laughing as her two small children chase pigeons across the park. Frowning, he remembers his personal situation too, a situation he prefers not to think about.

“My life,” thinks Joe, “is spinning out of control…”

Turning back to his desk, Joe forces himself to focus on his professional challenges. At the forefront of his mind is the firm's current financial performance. Sales are 25% behind target and several major accounts have not renewed their contracts in recent months. Kelly had called from Seattle, wanting to go through the numbers in detail to determine how to salvage the current year's performance. She had sounded even more agitated than usual, particularly since sales in the US and Asia Pacific had been hit badly by the sluggish economy too.

“What if these poor sales numbers are symptomatic of deeper, more malignant problems?” ponders Joe, as he looks out of the glass partitioning between his suite and the open plan office. Thinking about his leadership team, he counts all the ways in which their performance and behaviour fail to meet his expectations.

“Relationships between individuals are poor; there's a growing mistrust and some pretty unhealthy politicking taking place out there; Robert's resignation hasn't helped either,” he assesses, clinically.

Robert, Tiger's former Finance Director, was Joe's top performer. He had applied for Joe's job. He didn't get it. He had moved to the position as CEO for Tiger's major competitor and Joe's former employer, Dragon Recruitment.

Spinning his chair towards the window, Joe stares out at the scorched landscape, wondering where to start. Suddenly he remembers meeting a guy on his return flight from Seattle two weeks ago. He was a “strengths coach”. Joe had heard of business coaches, he'd even read a few books on business coaching; never though, had he heard of a strengths coach. Being curious by nature, Joe had spent some time getting to know this person, Richard, who had given him a business card when they parted at Heathrow. Joe recalls their conversation about the “deficit-based” belief system most people inherit from their childhood. Richard had explained that his job was to help leaders become more effective through focusing on strengths to achieve breakthrough thinking and to overcome challenges. At the time, Joe had been too embarrassed to admit that he was caught in the type of destructive habits Richard had described as typical of such a limiting belief system. Thinking about it now, he knew he'd had enough. He was tired of feeling trapped. It was time to find a way out and Richard's route had sounded kind of appealing.

Mulling over what Richard had shared with him on the plane, Joe gazes into the distance. Richard had been Chief Operating Officer for one of the UK's largest advertising firms before burnout forced him to take time out. An ambitious man, Richard had struggled to come to terms with his sudden and unexpected fall from the corporate ladder. Following six months away from work and a great deal of soul searching, Richard decided to become an executive coach. Sharing his learning, experiences and interpersonal strengths with others and helping them to succeed was the best choice he could take to move forward, he had said.

“I may end up burning out if I'm not careful. I think I'll call him,” thinks Joe, as he reaches for his wallet to find Richard's business card.

A few seconds later, he has it. Picking up the phone, he makes the call…

*

The day before his meeting with Richard, Joe chairs his regular team meeting with Tiger's European Regional Executive Team (TERET). The team comprises five members: Sally, the Sales and Marketing Director; Mark, the Operations Director; Raj, the Technical Director; Gwen, the Human Resources Director; and Phil, the new Finance Director (who is fast becoming Joe's right-hand man).

The meeting starts well, but within half an hour the usual petty in-house conflict kicks off. Mark and Raj had never seen eye-to-eye and this time their argument about a planned rebrand of the website is getting very personal.

“If you and your team can't get the site rebranded by January, we should go outside to a third party web design agency; at least they won't take holidays all the time, like you guys do!” Mark protests.

“Besides, rebranding our website should be a marketing project, not a technical project,” adds Mark, looking hopefully at Sally, expecting her support.

“I'm getting frustrated with your constant criticism Mark,” retorts Raj, irritably.

“You have no knowledge of web design, yet you are always criticizing what we're doing. We know what we are doing and want to do a proper job, not a half-baked one. That's why we're taking our time.”

Exhausted, Joe ends the meeting, feeling utterly dejected. Yet again, his thoughts turn to his wife, Lynette. Lynette had recently left him. She had filed for divorce, citing his long work hours as one of the reasons. Joe had known that the relationship was becoming increasingly strained by his ambition and excessive working hours, but had never ever imagined that Lynette would leave, taking their two young children, Harry and Amelia, with her.

*

Ten minutes into his meeting with Richard, Joe feels somewhat relieved. His fear of being subjected to psychoanalysis is receding. Richard appears to be more interested in what's going on in the business than in what's going on in Joe's head. Going into great detail to describe how the strengths coaching process works, Richard skilfully navigates Joe to a position of such comfort that, before Joe knows it, he is enjoying exploring in depth the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that Tiger faces.

“I am confident strengths coaching can help here, Joe. I sense you need quick results so I recommend we meet every two weeks over a six-month period, a coaching contract if you like. Let me explain a little more about what this would involve and what the outcomes will be,” explains Richard.

“During these sessions, we will explore a proven approach that helps leaders stretch their strengths to achieve positive outcomes in terms of their purpose, their passion, their processes and their performance.

“We will start by getting a better understanding of what you bring to this leadership role and how you can combine your core strengths, values, aspirations and abilities to move beyond boundaries – perceived or real – and give yourself what we refer to as your leadership edge.¹

Stretch Leadership^TM Model

“We will then explore the four habits of leaders at full strength: Sharing Vision; Sparking Engagement; Skilfully Executing; and Sustaining Progress. I say habits, because learning does not always translate into doing unless you choose to embed the learning with repeated behaviour, until that behaviour, that new way of being and doing, becomes automatic. Doing this, ultimately leads to better performance with very little need for external instruction or direction.

“We'll talk more about this; all you need to know for now is that, to help you adopt these habits, we'll look at some specific changes to your behaviour you may need to practise for a while until they become second nature.

“By the end of the final session, stretching your strengths – and those of your team – will have enabled you to lead your business to achieve the goals we agree on next week, and to sustain this success beyond the coaching period,” he continues.

“Think of it like a continuous journey – an expedition. The first step is to clarify and clearly communicate your aspirations, both for yourself and for this organization (where you want to go).

“The second step is to ensure everyone is aware of where it is you want to go and how you can harness your personal, team and organizational strengths to get there (what you need to pack for the expedition).

“The third step is to take action, practising your learning (selecting the best route and starting out on the journey).

“The fourth step is to become agile in stretching (and sometimes contracting) your personal, team and organizational strengths across different situations (ensuring you adapt your route when conditions change to minimize risks and get to your destination in the best way possible).

“The fifth step is to recognize the successes and setbacks you have met along the path (comparable to taking time to enj...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Epigraph
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Dedication
• Chapter 1: The Leadership Edge: In which Joe comes to terms with his predicament and challenges his beliefs about leadership…
• Chapter 2: Habit 1: Sharing Vision (stretch goals): In which Joe practises setting stretch goals…
• Chapter 3: Habit 1: Sharing Vision (optimizing strengths): In which Joe practises optimizing his strengths…
• Chapter 4: Habit 2: Sparking Engagement (optimizing others' strengths): In which Joe practises optimizing the strengths of others and takes action to reduce performance risk…
• Chapter 5: Habit 3: Skilfully Executing (strengths-based culture): In which Joe practises stretching the limits and reinforces a strengths-based culture…
• Chapter 6: Habit 3: Skilfully Executing (reinforcing a strengths- based culture): In which Joe continues to stretch the limits…
• Chapter 7: Habit 4: Sustaining Progress: In which Joe recognizes achievement…
• Chapter 8: Postscript: In which Joe celebrates success and passes on his learning…
• Appendix: The Stretch Toolbox: Free tools and resources to help you transform your leadership
• Glossary of Terms
• About the Authors
• EULA