The key to any successful business is working with your team’s individual strengths. As your team is only as strong as its weakest link, it is vital to consistently work on inspiring all team members so they continue to perform at their peak.
Strength based leaders awaken the sleeping passion that may be lying dormant within individuals. By inspiring them to identify their natural strengths, they help individuals find the reason to strive to achieve excellence. The key lies in learning how to influence your team's behaviour.
So many of our leaders are leading in a style that only meets their personal needs yet fails to address the strengths and needs of their team members and this is a key ingredient to poor work performance and lack of employee engagement.
Research has found that for leaders it is vital that they communicate and match the behaviour style of an individual team member. Meeting their needs provides a powerful connection, that makes each member feel good, they respond accordingly and results power along.
The authors have been studying strength based leadership over the past 3 years and use the True Colours system to help teams quickly identify their strengths, motivations and stressors, with outstanding results. Each person has access to all four colours True Colours uses, yet we are born with an affiliation towards certain colours and this is where our natural strengths lie.
Here is a brief summary:
Blue:Artistic, relationship builders, client focused, sensitive to others needs, excellent with open communication and keeping a team bonded together
Gold: Organised, focused and outcome driven, they are excellent in keeping teams on track and driving the teams towards success
Green:Conceptual, global thinkers, they can see the big picture way before anyone else, they can identify hidden opportunities that may otherwise go unrecognised, great researches and evaluators
Orange:The doers, full of energy, self motivated impulsive, tests the limits and natural entertainers, they are great at taking the risks that are often required to achieve results
Embrace the philosophy of Strength based Leadership and reap the rewards. Use a tool like
True Colours to quickly identify everyone’s strengths and ensure you a high performing motivated team who consistently produce results.
Prepared by Eric Bailey and Tanya Harris
True Colours Training and the Eric Bailey Group
