Recognizing & Nurturing the Seeds of Potential
As a leader, you’re surrounded by a team of individuals. Each of these individuals has strengths, skills, potential. Your job as a leader is two-fold in this regard: a) recognize the potential and b) nurture it, feed it, call it forth. If you fail in either of these areas, then you are not leading effectively.
Leadership requires you to call forth what others might not see within themselves. You know that the people on your team have strengths — otherwise they wouldn’t be on your team, right? And yet, so often, those people may or may not see what you see. If you want your leadership to be as powerful as possible, it is your responsibility to shine the light on those strengths and gifts, to support these individuals in accessing their full potential. To support you in doing this, here are 5 simple steps to follow:
- Name the strengths as you see them. Everything from communication ability, risk-taking, relationship-building, data analysis — whatever strength you see, name it.
- Challenge each person to maximize their use of said strengths. Provide opportunities to stretch and grow.
- Be sure that diversity is welcomed on your team. If you expect a cookie-cutter approach to problem-solving, inevitably some seeds will die.
- Allow mistakes — and allow individuals to learn from them. Don’t penalize mistakes; point to the learning instead.
- Celebrate successes, however small. Encourage individuals to build on these small successes, in order to ensure bigger successes.
Being a leader requires you to call people forth into the biggest, best possible vision of themselves. Following the steps above will ensure that you are able to do this effectively. And, by way of leading by example, be certain that you have someone or some people in your life who will do these same things for you. In order to invite people to be at their best, you need to have someone invite you to be at your best.
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