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Can you think of someone who would not want to be called the best? Most business leaders and professionals would beam at this honor. Being the best means you have an extreme strength. It emerges from a natural talent or intense study, practice and development.

Yet there is a weakness to every extreme strength. That weakness is the undeveloped counter-strength you might need today or in the next step of your career.

For self-development, traditional wisdom says:
#1 Be aware of your weakness
#2 Know how to change
#3 Have the desire to change


Why does the weakness often persist?

1. The organization taps you for your strength. More of your time is spent using a strength than developing a counter-strength.
2. Using the strength feels better than the struggle of developing a weakness. We yield to the positive feelings.
3. Being called the best can create overconfidence and block growth. Consider, when are you too confident to learn?
4. Believing that the counter-strength is inconsistent with the extreme strength. Picture a strong analytic who relies heavily on data and looks down on those who don’t. How likely is this analytic to develop and use big picture thinking necessary in a leadership position?
5. Fearing that it will weaken the extreme strength. For example, strong driver personalities who push for the end results are afraid that learning participative leadership will undermine success.

Overcoming the grip of extreme strength:

1. If the organization is the block, ask for a short project where you can learn a counter-strength.
2. If the positive feelings are holding you back, picture the negative feelings of being unprepared for the next skill set needed.
3. If overconfidence is trapping you, find a trusted friend or mentor to snap you out of it with honest feedback.
4. If are stuck in one belief, search for examples to test the accuracy of it. Is it a feeling or a fact? If it is a feeling, you can stretch past it and develop a counter-strength.
5. If fear of failure is stopping you, find people who have your strength and the counter-strength you need. Their balanced success can move you past your fear.

How have you developed counter-strengths to balance your greatest strengths? What success have you had that will help others? Please share your story below.


©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, turns change obstacles into your professional success with inspiration to action. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote features, footage to view, and customer testimonials.

If you are a new leader, your plate is full of responsibility and your to-do list with things to learn. Developing one skill will steer you through the new challenges and guide you to lead people well.

New leaders, develop your intuition.

Intuition is not voodoo. It is not magic. Intuition is not psychic ability.

Intuition is experience reapplied. Good detectives do it. Diagnostic physicians do it when when technology can’t. Very successful leaders do it.

Image by: Hexmar

If intuition is just experience, why call it intuition? Because it isn’t just experience.

Intuition is a synthesis of information and experience — especially about people — reapplied in a different time and space. Over time and with practice, the synthesis works so quickly that many people experience it as a hunch. In any case, this intuition delivers valuable foresight to a leader.


Steps to Develop Your Intuition

1. Become a student of human behavior. Observe & listen to them. Communicate with them.
2. Give yourself permission to see things as they are unencumbered with your fears, values, hopes, and personal agenda. Intuition comes from this. Like a detective, spot patterns and see exceptions to patterns. How they look when they are feeling certain things. How they behave in diverse situations when having those feelings.
3. Build your intuition data bank. Embrace this input as non-measurable data. It crosses over time and space. Gather it to store and reuse in the future for synthesis and reapplication.

Implications for Leaders

To broaden your vision, don’t micro-manage. It is difficult to see the forest if you are working on one tree.

Get to know those you work with as people. Get to know them sooner than later — your colleagues, your team, your vendors, your suppliers, and other teams that your organization will work with.

Learn about diverse people behavior and never stop learning. If you stop, your intuition data bank becomes incomplete and your intuition flawed.

Acting on intuition alone is a mistake. Use your newly developed intuition as a pointer for further investigation. It maximizes the value of your intuition and minimizes pattern error, stereotyping, and bad decisions.

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Consider Einstein’s view:”The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. I believe in intuition and inspiration. At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason.”


What benefits have you had from intuition? What do you do to develop it? I would love to hear your stories and perspective in the comments field below.


©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, has spent 23 years teaching corporate leaders, managers, and their teams to develop foresight and intuition for success in leadership, teamwork customer service, and sales. See this site for workshops and customers’ testimonials.

Leaders, team members, and customer service reps (CSRs), have known for a long time that a sincere apology is a perfect way to rebuild trust after mistakes or trouble. One of my popular posts, The Perfect Apology and the One Word That Destroys It, gives valuable info on how to do it.

Yet I find that many, including a fair number of technical professionals, struggle with apologizing because they think it publicizes their weaknesses and faults. They think it diminishes who they are and reduces their potential success. Ironically, the apology is perfect chance to build trust in yourself and strengthen your chances for long term professional success.

Consider the Perfect Chance to Build Trust

Those you have hurt by your words or actions are already aware of your mistakes and weaknesses.  Not apologizing makes you look weak not strong. They can see that you are afraid to apologize and it diminishes your professionalism.

An inability to admit mistakes, apologize, and lead onward publicizes a lack of self-trust. When leaders assess potential for promotion, they pass over those who do not trust their own inner strength.

Some claim that this is not self-trust; it is self-confidence. I say — not completely. Self-confidence is that underlying strength for daily actions. Yet even the most confident people face situations or moments when self-confidence fails. Often when their actions or words have caused pain or trouble.

At that moment, you must be able to take a chance — a leap of faith — and trust yourself to recover without denial from whatever embarrassment or shame you feel. Offering an apology is a perfect chance to build trust in yourself and rebuild others’ trust in you.

Why?

Because accountability and integrity show a deep inner strength and inner strength is a heck of a billboard!


How has apologizing brought you professional success?

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers insight and experience to turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshops, keynotes, footage and DVds.

As a coach, I specialize in transitions to help professionals meet some specific goal.  The transitions are from one behavior to another to achieve something new, different, or more.  

Some recent examples: 

• A Help Desk manager who wanted to be more assertive after receiving performance feedback in that light.
• A manager who wanted and needed better presentation skills for many aspects of her job.   She found the coaching fun and productive. 
• A systems analyst who wanted to relocate from the east coast to New Mexico and live a very different life.  She did not know where to begin to have this new life.   She is there now!
• A big thinker type – great at generating ideas, brainstorming, and creativity – needed to communicate with more focus.  The big thinker now uses an email template we created to communicate for impact. 

Why tap a coach?  Transitions from one behavior to another require more than just learning a new skill.    For most, it means overcoming blocks that stop learning and change.   There are many books out there about changing your career, your life, your outlook.  Ever read one and still no change?  As a coach, I inspire you to action!

ASK Kate!  This blog gives you the opportunity to pose your transition questions to me directly and get transition steps at no cost — until the end of March 2009.   I have extended this offer through the end of April 2009 to include followups to the International Help Desk Conference.   Many don’t want to post their questions here preferring instead to email me.   Either way is fine.

Let’s get started … Kate Nasser