Empty your weakness backpack
As I’ve transitioned into increasing leadership roles, I’ve grown much more comfortable with my weaknesses. It’s not that I’ve stopped working on them, I just no longer bury my head in the sand and act like they don’t exist. I’ve come to terms that they’re here, and I know when I’ve worked through the current group of them another batch will crop up to focus on.
The reality is that all of us have a set of weaknesses that we’ll have to shoulder as we move through our career.
During the first part of anyone’s career, the temptation is to hide your weaknesses.
Your instincts say to stand at the far side of the room and keep your back to the wall so that nobody will spot your weaknesses. For the most part, there really isn’t anything wrong with that.
However, as you progress into leadership roles and you move from the back of the room to the front it becomes much harder to hide those weaknesses, and pretending they don’t exist creates risk.
It may sound counter-intuitive but my philosophy is not to hide them at all, and be very transparent about my weaknesses with my teams.
Why I think it’s important for leaders to share their weaknesses with their teams
As a leader you might assume that your role is to understand the weaknesses of your team and to navigate around them.
After all, a big part of your job is monitoring and addressing these weaknesses through one-way HR exercises.
There is a big problem with this mentality.
If you were to objectively look at any organization of individuals, who’s weaknesses actually pose the greatest threat to achieving the team’s goals?
It’s the leaders weaknesses that will cast the biggest shadow.
Unfortunately, given the nature of these one-way relationships there is rarely an open dialogue about those weaknesses. In most cultures it would be considered taboo to have an open and honest conversation with your boss about what they struggle with.
This doesn’t set the team up well for success. This scenario is especially true for a role like mine, where I’m frequently working with different individuals and only have 6 months to build a team, deliver an outcome, and move onto the next project.
So as I set out on a new project – especially with a new team – I very openly tell them what my weaknesses are as a leader, with clear direction that we’ll have to be extra vigilant in those areas to make sure we hit our goals.
It’s an unconventional approach, but I think full transparency within teams is a key enabler for success, and I’m more than happy to be the first one who takes that step.
Think I’m crazy? Buttons to share your thoughts below!
