Should You Embrace Your Strengths or Fix Your Weaknesses?
There are often two schools of thought when it comes to deciding whether or not you need to focus more on your strengths or weaknesses. On one hand, you could focus on addressing your weaknesses so they do not hold you back in your career. On the other hand, you can ignore your weaknesses and focus on leaning into your strengths. But which is the correct approach? In order to answer that question we need to explore a bit more about each perspective.
WHAT IS A WEAKNESS?
The first important question to consider is, “What is a weakness?” Is it a skill in which we don’t have innate talent or is it something in which we are less practiced and experienced?
According to Carol Dweck, those individuals who do not believe their talents are fixed or innate are more successful and resilient than those who do. This developed into the concept of a growth mindset. For those who develop a growth mindset, a weakness is not a fixed state, but an opportunity to grow and develop. However, if we have a fixed mindset, we are more likely to believe that additional effort will not yield positive results. Thus we may be less willing to invest in our weaknesses as we see them as unchangeable.
Angela Duckworth built upon Dweck’s idea of the growth mindset by exploring what makes people successful. Her answer was grit, which is defined as sustained effort over time. In her achievement formula, she points out that “effort” counts twice. So if we actually devote time and effort to develop a skill, we should see improvement. Once again we see that we can be led astray if we believe that our talents are innate. If we recognize that performance is related to effort, then we might be more willing to work on our weaknesses.
So if we believe in the work of Dweck and Duckworth, we might advocate that you should spend time addressing your weaknesses. At the very least we should be able to move a weakness to more of an average performance with some sustained effort. Anyone who doesn’t believe that focusing on improving a weakness is worthwhile, may be coming from a perspective of a fixed mindset and thus believe their efforts are futile.
As an Executive Coach, the first thing I ask a client when they tell me they don’t like a certain skill or task is, “Do you not like it or are you just not good at it?.” Those are two different things, but many times they are conflated. We often rebuff skills that we lack innate talent and convince ourselves that we just don't like them. If we can admit we don’t like something because we aren’t good at it, then we can start to introduce a growth mindset and change the way we approach these weaknesses. Unfortunately, the idea that we could actually improve our skill if we put in sustained effort isn't widespread.
However, there is still another way in which to apply the learnings on growth mindset and grit. We could also view it from the perspective that if we focus on further developing our strengths we can become experts and that might have more value. This brings us to the other side of the debate which is to focus our attention on our strengths instead of our weaknesses.
EXPLORING STRENGTHS & DERAILERS
One proponent of the strength focused perspective is from Gallup, which owns the CliftonStrengths Assessment. Through their research they have shown that employees are happier when they are focused on their strengths rather than weaknesses. Employee engagement and performance increase while attrition lowers when you invest in developing an employee’s strengths. Additionally, focusing on our strengths can improve our self-confidence.
If we take a step back, we can see that it is potentially more enjoyable and less stressful when you get to work on your strengths. From a career perspective, finding a role that allows you to leverage your strengths will lead to more happiness and fulfillment. However, does that mean we should solely focus on our strengths and ignore our weaknesses?
One way to find a middle ground is to focus on weaknesses if they are areas that may derail us or prevent us from seeing the full benefits of our strengths. This is the philosophy behind the Hogan “Dark Side” assessment, which focuses on identifying our derailers. Sometimes a strength can be overused to the point where it becomes a weakness and that can put your career success at risk.
As someone who has taken all of these assessments and is familiar with all the philosophies mentioned in this article, I can confidently say that the answer to whether to focus on your strengths or your weaknesses is...it depends. A favorite phrase of an Organizational psychologist! Here’s how I’d really approach this.
MY RECOMMENDATION
First, I’d get an honest assessment of your weaknesses either from official 360 reviews, your performance reviews, or informal 1:1 conversations with your direct Manager. Once you have a better idea of your weaknesses, ask yourself what is holding you back from working on those weaknesses. If the answer is a fear or assumption that you’ll never improve on those areas, I would spend time developing a growth mindset. The idea that your skills are fixed or solely based on innate talent is more damaging than your weak skill itself.
If you are willing to embrace a growth mindset as you approach your weaknesses, then determine how consequential these weaknesses are to your success in your current role. For example, if you find that a weakness is potentially holding you back by either overshadowing your strengths and putting your reputation at risk, then it's worth trying to address. Another instance where it's worth addressing a weakness is if that skillset is important for the next phase of your career. For example, if you are weak at managing people and are set on moving up in your current career path where you would need to manage a team, then you need to address that weakness.
On the other hand, sometimes we realize that we don’t actually need that skill in the next phase of our career, or it becomes less important. In my own career, I found that while I was above average at financial modeling and Excel skills compared to the general workforce, amongst former I-Bankers and Strategy Consultants I was weak. However, that wasn’t a skill I was going to need as much as I moved up in my career. I didn't want to work in an analyst role for very long. As a result, I focused on avoiding careless mistakes that would undermine my reputation. Beyond that, it wasn’t worth it or of interest to me to develop my skills further. Instead, I spent my effort on developing and leaning into my areas of strength, as they aligned more with the direction I wanted to take my career.
Which brings me to my last piece of advice, which is evaluating when and where you get to use your strengths today and in the future. If you are in a role where you rarely get to demonstrate your strengths, that is where I’d focus my attention. It's important to align yourself with a role that can utilize your strengths because of the benefits we discussed such as increased self confidence, engagement, and performance. And then, per my example above, think about what skills are needed for the next phase or future direction of your career. That is how you can determine which is more important to focus on, your strengths or weaknesses.
