Don’t Let Your Boss Define Your Weakness

DON'T LET YOUR BOSS DEFINE YOUR WEAKNESS We’re taught from an early age that there are things we do well - our strengths - and there are things we’re not so great at doing – our weaknesses. Once we zero in on the weaknesses, we’re instructed that we have to continually work to improve our shortcomings, sometimes at the risk of developing our strengths. But, how much time should you devote to improving your weakness? From interviews to performance reviews, weaknesses are discussed ad nauseam. You can become so afraid of your boss, colleagues, or friends seeing your shortcomings that you work tirelessly to fix or disguise them. That takes precious time away from doing what you do well. Instead of being concerned about your so-called weakness, be concerned about whether it can be used against you. Know if it hinders your performance. Know if it prevents you from accomplishing your goals. That way, you know where your focus of improvement should lie. Not All Weaknesses Are Equal Believing that you should remain focused working on your weaknesses is short-sighted because it can lead to insecurity and self-doubt. That’s counterproductive. Not all weaknesses will make you less successful. Let’s say you’ve been told, or you know, that you’re not so great in the public speaking department. If you have a job that is not public facing and you know that’s never going to be a part of your job, how much effort should you spend improving it? Unless it’s a personal goal, does it really matter? On the other hand, if you’re a terrible public speaker and you have to give a multitude of speeches throughout the course of a year, you can see where that will be problematic. That could be a detriment to your career. Just like battles, learn to pick and choose the weaknesses that should be improved. Be concerned if they are keeping you from starting something new, from pursuing a dream, or preventing your career growth. If so, then bingo, that’s what you need to work on. Focus on What Matters If a weakness is not going to prevent your success, you’re better off spending your time building out your strengths. Our strength is often times a natural gift. If we make it better, we can maximize the outcome of our efforts. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t attempt to improve but you only have so many hours in the day. Focus on what is important to your long-term satisfaction and overall career and life happiness. Concentrate on what counts and what’s important to you personally. The rest will sort itself out. Don’t let your boss define your weakness when it really doesn’t matter to your success or to the success of the organization. A Note to Managers Business culture has long been focused on weakness prevention and managers are led to believe they should spend time and energy addressing deficits in their employees. That attempts to make employees someone they’re not. In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang describes how opposite or contrary forces are actually complementary, and interconnected and how they give rise to each other as they interrelate. That’s how I like to build teams. Complementary but equal forces. So, the next time you talk about strengths and weaknesses with your employee, ask yourself if it matters to organizational success. Or, is your time better spent developing strengths and building out a diverse team where you can use all strengths to your advantage? Where one person is weak, fill that gap with someone is strong. What makes a team successful is that individual strengths are leveraged against weaknesses, catapulting the team to greatness. Don’t waste time on things that don’t matter.