Focusing on ourselves and our interests at the expense of others (our teams, our employees,) will ultimately leave us isolated and ineffective.
Selfless people are always honoured. In fact, one cannot be a successful and selfish at the same time. Unselfishness is the only attitude that will make us winners in the end.
So What’s the Formula? How can we become Less Selfish?
We become less selfish, the moment we highly value how others are gifted. Everyone has some skill that makes them better than we are at something. No one has it all, and what God has given others is important to us. Each has a unique combination of signature strengths that gives them a great value.
Become a leader who will value what others carry. That doesn’t mean that you have to deny the gift in you, what is means is, if you want to be a selfless leader, focus on developing the strengths of others.
When we concentrate on improving our weakness, or that of others, we become average at our strengths. Building on employee strengths is a much more effective way in raising performance than trying to improve weaknesses.
Here are 3 ways to Value the Gift in Others, and Build on the Strengths of Your Employees:
1. Help your team individually discover their strengths.
Don’t assume that your staff know their strengths. People often take their most powerful talents for granted. It is your responsibility as their leader to help them (your team) introduce themselves to themselves, (They will treasure you for this.)
2. Apply individual strengths to achieve the team or organisation’s goals.
Once you’ve helped them individually, now focus on helping them as a team, to understand each other’s strengths and how these gifts united can make them highly proficient and improve teamwork.
3. Assign team projects based on individual strengths.
For example, a team member who has “Relator,” “Achiever,” and “Strategic,” as their core strengths, will do well in sales. But an “Intellection,” or “Harmonizer” cannot be made responsible for the sales force. So every task must be assigned based on individual’s strengths.
The one-size-fits-all approach is rooted in selfishness because people are differently gifted, and it takes time, energy, resources and commitment to your team’s uniqueness and to develop them.
If you are a business owner, entrepreneur, manager or team leader, remember this, nothing is more important than for a leader to focus less on himself (his success and promotion) and more on others. Great leaders are committed to developing their teams’ individual competencies.
They know that by watching their teams develop their skills can be one of the most rewarding experiences in their career.
Question: Do you know your own strengths? do you know your team’s strengths? What are you doing to develop yourself and the people around you?
Leave your comment below, and share this post.
