Strengths are Weaknesses

If you can assess your strengths, you can find evidence of your weaknesses and add other skills to mitigate these weaknesses. Your weaknesses are often an unintended consequence of your strengths. If you are strong enough to fix anything, you are also strong enough to break anything.

I am inner-directed, not other-directed. I don’t “go along to get along”. I don’t waste time on anything I regard as trivial.

I believed half the things I learned in school were wrong and said so in the essays I turned in. I felt free to disagree with my teachers.  I was a good self-learner and not a doscile follower. I was my own mentor, but learned a lot from others. Writing job descriptions, job postings and work processes gave me a handle on the operation. I intervened to solve problems and improved processes and didn’t stay in my room.

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But my entire career required me to work for bosses and customers. I also worked in concert with other managers and work with my own team. I was an accomplishment-oriented leader. I did new tasks myself, outlined the processes and delegated the tasks. I didn’t have consultants do any work. I encouraged employees to be themselves and do the work they loved to make work fun. I always saw the humor in things. I was not afraid to be myself.

I knew the down-side of my strengths and made up for them by responding to problems quickly and thoroughly. I took jobs with organizations where my style would be compatible.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader