How to Harness Strengths in Your Team

December 23, 2022

How to Harness Strengths in Your Team

How do you harness the strengths of your employees?

  1. Identify what they’re good at.
  2. Reinforce their skills.
  3. Make room for imperfection.
  4. Appreciate them—and show it.
  5. Give them constructive feedback.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. As a business owner, it’s your duty to assess the capability of your employees and how they can benefit your company in achieving its mission. You are also in a unique position to help harness employee strengths and discover who they want to be.

Identify what they’re good at.

To harness their strengths, you first need to know what those strengths are. Fortunately, you’re in a good position to see them.

Your employees are likely giving you their best already. They show you what they’re good at by doing their jobs diligently. What you need to do now is to observe what they can bring to your business. It may be difficult for them to voice these out, so it’s best seen through their action. Pay attention to what tasks they finish quickly and with little correction. Notice where they need help, and where they can manage just fine on their own. These are how you can identify their strengths in the workplace.

Reinforce their skills.

Give them constructive feedback.

Once you’ve identified their strengths, you can now reinforce them in the office. You can do this by providing them with tasks and projects that will challenge them. As you do this, you need to encourage them that these are opportunities for them to experiment. They need to know it’s okay to make mistakes and learn from them.

Not only will this make them better assets to your company, but they’ll be able to improve their own skillset as well.

Make room for imperfection.

When providing them with new opportunities, let your employees know that it’s okay to make mistakes, as long as they get back up and learn from them. Allow them to get better from experience, and don’t beat them back down when they fall. Teach them that they’re not there to impress you; rather, they are there to improve themselves.

Appreciate them—and show it.

Appreciate them—and show it.

When they succeed, too often they don’t feel like it matters in the eyes of their team. Being a “cog in the machine” often feels like your individual efforts don’t make much of a difference. Show them that’s not the case by appreciating their efforts and acknowledging their successes. You don’t have to praise every little thing, but at least show that you like it when they’re doing their best. That will go a long way in making them feel like they should keep giving their best, each day at work.

Give them constructive feedback.

When it comes to feedback, just take one look at nasty comments on the Internet to know that not all of it is good. Feedback needs to be constructive to improve someone’s work ethic, skills, and talents. Being constructive means that the comments should be conducive to the person. You should be giving feedback with the intent to make the other person feel compelled to try again, not regretful for trying in the first place.

Key Takeaway

When it comes to harnessing employee strengths, it’s a matter of both treating the person the way you want to be treated and guiding the company to have a culture of striving for achievement. The first may sound easier than the latter, but you’d be surprised—the best entrepreneurs lead by example, so sometimes all it takes is a little thoughtfulness and compassion to guide your team toward real change.

For more insights and tips, check out the rest of my blog. And if you’d like to meet me in person and talk business, let’s get in touch. Looking forward to meeting you!