Tom Rath and Barry Conchie have just published Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow.
I was looking forward to this book for 2 reasons. I am a huge advocate of strength based leadership and I have always appreciated the contributions to employee engagement from Gallup’s Tom Rath.
If you have not taken the Strengthsfinder 2.0 inventory of strengths then the book is well worth purchasing just to get the code to allow you to take the inventory.
If you have read Strengthsfinder 2.0 or other books related to Gallup’s work on strengths, the book is disappointing as only about 40% of the book adds new content and most of the book rehashes Gallups 34 strengths themes and their application to leadership.
My expectations were raised when the authors declared the book was based on 20,000 in-depth interview with senior leaders, studies of more than one million work teams and 50 years of Gallup Polls about the world’s most admired leaders, and a study or 10,000 followers around the world. This level of research lead me to expect volumes of insights and strengths based leadership action.
I did not get the depth and breadth I had hoped for, but I did get a few insightful nuggets on strengths and employee engagement:
The most effective leaders
- are always investing in strengths.
- surround themselves with the right people and then maximize their team.
- understand their followers’ needs.
It was discouraging to read that only 30 to 32% of North Americans use their strengths every day.
I appreciated the quotation from Donald Clifton, Tom Rath’s grandfather and the grandfather of the strengths movement:
A leader needs to know his strengths as a carpenter knows his tools, or as a physician knows the instruments at her disposal. What great leaders have in common is that each truly knows his or her strengths — can can call on the right strength at the right time.
I also appreciated that when an organization’s leadership does not focus on strengths there is only a 9% chance of people being engaged in work but if an organization’s leadership focuses on strengths the level of engagement soars to 73%.
It was clever how Gallup situated the 34 strengths in the 4 domains of leadership: executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking.
It was insightful to focus on followers’ four basic needs of trust, compassion, stability, and hope. It was not surprising but it was disheartening to read that the chances of employees being engaged at work when they do not trust the company’s leaders are just 1 in 12.
Once again, if you have not taken the StrengthsFinder 2.0 inventory than I encourage you to purchase the book and develop greater awareness of your own strengths.
In many ways this book should have been a perfect fit for my twin passions of employee engagement and strengths based leadership yet the limited amount of new material and the rehashing of the 34 strengths left me wanting something much more robust than I received given the volumes of research available to the authors.
Grow strong along with me, the best is yet to be.
This is a disappointment as described — and their first one. The string of books this crowd has done is both fundamental and ground-breaking when it comes to understanding your abilities to do the job.
One other comment in relation to strengths: most people don’t know what their strengths are to a hiring manager. You can ask trusted associates, of course, but their strength finder questionnaire is simply an awesome way to understand your strengths.
One can then build your skills and attributes around these strengths. It is very powerful.
Scot,
I was disappointed but if you have never read their work or completed the Strengthsfinder than there is value in it. I think my expectations were quite high given the organization and the depth and breadth of research available.
David
There is a counter-point to strength-based leadership presented by fifteen authors in “The Perils of Accentuating the Positive” (Hogan Press 2009).
As a business owner (advertising & public relations) and a student of leadership development, I’m concerned that the strength movement allows executives to ignore negative behavior. Marshall Goldsmith’s “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There” makes a compelling case for developing weaknesses into strengths and one that appears to be a better tonic for the current economic crisis. That is, don’t we need more well-rounded leaders, as opposed to a few elites who are given permission to “flourish”? By the way, how do organizational psychologists measure flourishment? Is there a scale for that?
For me, there’s something “Twilight Zone” about the whole strengths scene. Is it just me?
David:
I appreciate your comments. Good use of Marshall Goldsmith. I think quite the opposite. I see so few people actually get enough leverage from their strengths and there is so little time that trying to transform weaknesses in many cases seems futile to me. I would hope we could all flourish and there would be no permission needed from anyone and I wonder if we need a flourish scale. I don’t think your thoughts are “just you” I think they are rampant. Why else would we have these impossibly long list of leadership/management competencies. I will stay with strengths not to ignore weaknesses but because my time and contribution is limited. Peter Drucker, no management slouch, was one of the first to talk about strengths. I vote with Peter.
I read this book with great interest. Most leadership books are part of the cult of personality celebrating some charismatic big ego while neglecting the team it took to realize the vision. The emphasis here on followers and teams is commendable.
But I had to think about the focus on strengths aspect. Strengths are important, but leaders’ weaknesses can kill a company, community, and economy. Think about $18.5 Billion in Wall St. bonuses subsidized by government bailouts; the derailments of Prince at Citi, Fuld at Lehman, and then Thain and in January and then again in February 2009; or 401(k)’s down the drain?
The relentless strengths, strengths, strengths mantra is like betting the farm on upside potential without considering downside risk. Strengths are compelling, but weaknesses can be lethal. In politics, look no further than Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. In business, look no further than the current global economic crisis.
Rob,
I am not sure these downfalls came from strengths. If my strengths are humor and playfulness and critical thinking I may have intervened and we all play some type of leadership role in our organization. I think about the strength to stand up and hold a crucial conversation.
Hopefully strengths are not some kind of naive approach to work and leadership.
Having said that I appreciate your points and I am not ready to bet the farm.
David
I’ve been in the professional of organizational development and employee/leadership development. I’m burnt out on stuff like this. So, let me ask you: Who wants WEAKNESS-based leadership? Perhaps the execs from the “Too Big to Fail” banks and Detroit’s automobile CEOs and executive boards. Nolt much of a title if you plan to sell hundreds of thousands.
Books like these in small doses are digestible. To see so many, thousands, line the shelves of mainstream bookstores suggests that there’s an industry of opportunists preying upon impressionable people from all age groups, elevating common sense principles into cult worship.
This too shall pass. The Ultimate Truths shall not; they are in your heart, head and in front of your eyes if you choose to listen and see.
I appreciate how you said this. Still so few are actually doing more than reading of scanning that enacting strengths.