In a strong team, the leader knows how to capitalise on each member’s strengths. Not everyone on the team has to be a great people person, but some have to be. Not everyone has to be meticulous, but certain members of the team must be.
If you must capitalise on individual’s strengths, you must be able to
- Recognise strengths: Many leaders have a hard time seeing strengths in their team members. In a climate where appreciation is often in short supply, many of us get out of the habit of looking for strengths in others. It takes a change of mind set to start seeing individuals in terms of what we admire and appreciate in them. If you make effort to recognise the strength of your team members, your success will be unmatched. Take your time to understudy your team members in your football team, among the prefects as the senior prefect, know their strengths and get each member to work in the areas of their strength.
- Combine strengths to make a team: Combining strengths in a strong team is a little bit like combining ingredients in a great recipe. Just dumping the ingredients into a pan doesn’t make a great dish, no matter how excellent each individual ingredient maybe. It isn’t unusual to see talented, capable individual who under-perform as a team. The diversity n your team should be recognised and celebrated and in the same vein, combined to form an excellent team. Do not make a mess of some of your members and praise the others, you would have created room for dissension rather than promote unity. The way the broom sticks combined to form a bunch of broom is the way we must be united to achieve a goal. Once a broom bunch is destroyed, a broom stick will never fulfil the purpose which a broom bunch was customised to fulfil.
- Focus on strengths, not weaknesses: Like Casey Stengell said, finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story. The article has stressed more than enough the need to recognise the strength of individual team members because when different members combine their strengths, they can do tremendous things. As a leader, it remains your sole responsibility to identify the strengths of your team members and also provide a good environment for them to combine efforts to make great things happen.