A Better Way to Look at Your Strengths and Weaknesses

I used to look at my leadership in terms of strengths and weaknesses. Over time, I realized this wasn’t very helpful. Have you ever been excited to work on your weaknesses? Yeah, me neither…

The biggest problem with strengths and weaknesses is that it doesn’t account for the reality that sometimes a strength can have a real negative impact, and what looks like a weakness can turn into an advantage.

Take assertiveness in leadership:

When it’s high, it can help provide vocal direction and drive action. But if it’s overused, it can come across as pushy and damage relationships.

On the other hand, a leader with lower assertiveness may struggle to get their point across in a meeting, but they’re often excellent at creating space for others to share and collaborate.

This shows that defining what’s a strength or weakness really depends on the situation we’re navigating.

Now, I prefer to see myself as having attributes I can choose to lean on more or less depending on the situation.

In an emergency, I need to use more assertiveness to communicate clear priorities. In a brainstorming session, I need to dial it back to allow others to contribute.

The point of this reframe is to stop labeling yourself as good or bad.

This mindset allows you to explore your attributes with neutrality, instead of starting from a place where you feel stuck or deflated because something is labeled a “weakness.”

It also opens the door to experimentation. Ask yourself:
🔷 What happens if I lean more or less on this particular attribute?
🔷 How might it change the results I’m after?