Written by: Mikaela Contreras, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
How many times have you had a conversation with your boss talking about developing your weaknesses? How many times have you had those uncomfortable conversations on how to improve your less than perfect skills and overcome your inadequacies.
Conversations that tend to circle around your shortcomings and what you should do to get better at them.
Probably quite a few if you’ve been in the workforce for a while.
But is this really the best way to get the most out of you? I argue that it’s not.
For what will happen when we look at the things we do poorly? I’ll share one of my examples.
I’m an extravert to a fault, a networker, a doer, a creator, a big-picture thinker, and a relationship builder.
I am NOT a natural organiser, a detail-focused woman, an analyst, or an administrator.
So when my manager asked me to do payroll while working as a recruiter, it was bound to go tits up. As you can imagine, doing payroll requires detail-focus, patience (which is another one of my shortcomings), and organisational skills. No matter how much I concentrated on doing it accurate, I always made at least one mistake.
Naturally, it wasn’t well-received by my manager and it was constantly on my “to improve- list”.
The consequences were these:
My motivation started to fade
My confidence started to decrease
My sense of achievement got a kick in the butt
My progress of developing my detail-focus was slow, painful, and had a low impact
What should we do instead? Of course, leveraging your strengths.
We tend to have natural talents, things that come easy to us. That doesn’t mean that we can’t develop and grow other talents but we have some competencies that we have a certain flair for.
What happens when we develop a skill that we already have a flair for?
We have more fun! We tend to like doing what we are good at!
Our motivation increases, as a result of having fun!
We learn faster! When developing something you already have a flair the progress and impact will be much quicker and pronounced.
We feel a much greater sense of achievement! By being more productive, we accomplish more.
Our confidence and trust in ourselves improve with the progress we make.
So when you are choosing a career path, a new job, or a project, leverage your strengths and build on your superpowers. It will make the most impact on your productivity and your happiness!
And if you are a manager, try to delegate tasks that speak to your employee’s strengths. It’ll pay off in the long run.
Mikaela Contreras, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Mikaela is a career and leadership coach specialising in empowering the careers of impact-driven HR and People professionals. After graduating from university with a degree in HR she spent a decade working across multiple HR functions across 3 countries. She discovered that most HR and People professionals are so focused on other people’s careers and development that they forget to nurture their own. After digging deep into her own values, vision and super-powers – she decided that her effort where best used for coaching and supporting people professionals on their career journeys.
