Fear Your Strengths: What You Are Best at Could Be Your Biggest Problem
Books / Hardcover
Books › Business & Economics › Leadership
ISBN: 1609949048 / Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, April 2013
Drawing on statistical findings and their work with senior leaders, Kaplan and Kaiser, who specialize in assessing leaders for selection and development, argue that a leader's strengths can work against him or her. They identify four fundamental leadership qualities (which they view as dualities) that if overemphasized, can compromise a leader's effectiveness: the need to be forceful or enabling, and the need to have a strategic or an operational focus. Using examples, they explain these dualities, common mindset traps, how to change mindsets and lopsidedness, and the characteristics of a complete leader. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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Once you’ve discovered your strengths, you need to discover something else: your strengths can work against you. Many leaders know this on some intuitive level, and they see it in others. But they don’t see it as clearly in themselves. Mainly, they think of leadership development as working on their weaknesses. No wonder. The tools used to assess managers are not equipped to pick up on overplayed strengths—when more is not better. Nationally recognized leadership experts Bob Kaplan and Rob Kaiser have conducted thousands of assessments of senior executives designed to determine when their strengths serve them well—versus betray them. In this groundbreaking book, they draw on their data and practical experience to identify four fundamental leadership qualities, each positive in and of itself but each of which, if overemphasized, can seriously compromise your effectiveness. Most leaders, they’ve found, are “lopsided”—they favor certain qualities to the exclusion of others without realizing it. The trick is to keep all four in balance. Fear Your Strengths provides tools to help you become aware of your leadership leanings and excesses and provides insights for combatting the mindset that encourages them. It offers a practical psychology of leadership, a better way for leaders to calibrate their performance so that you can make sure your strengths don’t overpower you but rather move you—and your organization—forward.
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