White Paper Now Available: Can Strengths Be Taken Too Far?

In “Can Every Strength Become a Weakness?” I reported on the lively LinkedIn Strengths-Based Leadership Development discussion group on “How do you help leaders let go of focusing on their weaknesses?” Part of the discussion focused on the mistaken belief that strengths can be overdone and become weaknesses.

If you’d like to follow this discussion further you can now download a copy of our just published white paper, “Can Strengths be Taken Too Far: Addressing a Common Misperception“. Here’s an excerpt addressing a common misunderstanding of strengths development:

“A prominent consulting company published a study on building a leadership pipeline. In this they quoted a senior HR executive who as a participant in a roundtable on developing leadership talent had said, ‘whenever you find someone with two or three strengths, most likely you will find that person has a serious weakness.’ This would seemingly support the idea that strengths carried too far become weaknesses, or that it is common to find these mixed together. We examined that question, and our data suggests just the opposite.

Only one person in a hundred people, with three or more strengths, will have a fatal flaw. From a group of 100 people with two or more strengths, less than 3 would have a fatal flaw. From a group of 100 people with just one strength, only 7 would have a fatal flaw. Looked at in the reverse way, 93% of all people who possess one or more fatal flaws, will have no leadership strengths. Strengths and weaknesses just do not frequently co-exist in the same person. It is clearly the exception, not the rule.”

There’s no evidence that strengths can be taken too far and become a weakness. Clearly the pathway to peak leadership performance is building strengths.

Click here to download the white paper and read more.