There is nothing more disturbing and unfortunate to me than meeting business leaders who appear to have absolutely no clue about their own distinct strengths or weaknesses. Worse of all are those who solely depend on others to validate their strengths and blindly navigate through cycles of failures and setbacks because of weaknesses they are in denial of.
I strongly believe that making a conscious effort to know and nurture our strengths and minimize our weaknesses gives us the unshakeable confidence and self-esteem we need as business leaders to achieve and overcome daunting situations.
How have I discovered my strengths? Several ways; my definition of strengths include both inner and outer strengths. By inner strengths, I mean the power within that keeps us balanced and centered amidst life’s many twists and turns. Our outer strengths are those that manifest for others to see.
I have developed a habit that has tremendously helped me in life. After every experience I go through, I do a self-assessment of the strengths that took me through that experience or those I gained in the process. Sometimes, I identify strengths I already know, other times I discover innate strengths I never knew existed. Occasionally, people are gracious enough to point out certain strengths in me which I haven’t yet noticed and that can be very gratifying.
Indeed, I am aware that many of us have been wrongly socialized to mentally diminish self-knowledge and mention of their strengths on the pretext of being “humble”. I think that is an unfortunate and limiting mindset to nurture because if you don’t know your strengths, people can use them for their own agendas or devalue them because they feel intimidated by them.
Same with our weaknesses. I think it’s a mark of strength to identify, name and accept one’s weaknesses, no matter how hard the truth may be. Knowing my weaknesses enables me to find out its source so I can figure out ways of dealing with them. Living in denial of a weakness is not the best, since invariably, you end up being the loser.
One of the ways that always drives me to quickly work on a weakness is observing it manifest in another person. Have you ever deliberately watched an angry person express their emotions before? Have you noticed that their actions and utterances are always so out-of-control and rash; it’s not a pretty sight to behold at all! How this helps me is that it gives me a mental and visual check on how I would look and sound like if I don’t control myself, so I stay on guard.
As a result of this habit of self-assessment, I seldom have difficulty receiving or discarding critique from others, though sometimes I must confess, the barb of some critics can really hurt!
Wisdom Gleaned:
My point in all this discourse is simple. Knowing thyself as a business owner is an absolute must otherwise you can’t handle the heat that comes with establishing and growing your business.
Coming up next week: Do I sometimes get Discouraged as Business Owner?
