A key component to moving into a strength focus begins with the first of 4 UNFEAR practices that I share in my book.

Accept what is real.

Unless and until we accept the circumstances of a given situation, we are reacting from fear and through fear based behaviors.  Forward movement is limited or impossible without first giving acceptance.

To operate from a place of strength, it is necessary to first accept our talents, our desires, our natural propensities, our weaknesses, our deficiencies, our circumstances, as well as the demands being placed on us.  If we dwell on what's not working, we waste energy and time that could be better spent finding solutions or being productive. As long as we are stuck in resistance patterns we are creating pain.

Many people have a hard time accepting their own talents and gifts. It is easier to play a victim role and reap the benefits of being a victim. How often have you given a compliment to someone only to have that compliment rejected? How many times have you been guilty of the same?

In order to move from a place of strength, we have to give up the rewards of  being a victim and embrace those aspects and characteristics of ourselves and our jobs in which we excel. Once we have done this it is easier to recognize and address areas where we experience lack and to find ways of mitigating the impact of weaknesses by getting help.  Admitting to weakness and asking for assistance is a strength behavior.  It opens the door for others to contribute and assist, adding their strengths to the equation. It also allows management teams to find alternate solutions and to work  around or to reassign tasks in a timely manner.

By accepting what is real, we are freed to move forward in strength.

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Karlin Sloan is the founder and CEO of Karlin Sloan & Company, Ms. Sloan provides organization development consulting, training and executive coaching to clients the U.S., Europe, South America and Asia.  She is the author of Smarter, Faster, Better; Strategies for Effective, Enduring, and Fulfilled Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2006) and Unfear (January 2011).

Inspired Leadership

Understanding and leveraging strengths is the road to inspired leadership. Recognizing and understanding how to focus on these strengths can tremendously benefit you and your team.  Do you know where your team's strengths lay?  Is your team organized in a way that maximizes the strengths of the individual members and the company? Are your team members playing to their strengths? Are you?

Measure and Build Employee Engagement
The strengths revolution has resulted in a whole new wave of measurement for organizations: employee engagement. Instead of measuring attrition, stress, or problems, we can measure what we want to call attention to and build inside of our teams. That’s employee engagement, which has a direct, proven correlation with productivity and retention.

5 Major Benefits of Leveraging Strengths

People who use their strengths more:
1. Are happier
2. Are more confident
3. Have higher levels of self-esteem
4. Have higher levels of energy and vitality
5. Experience less stress

Help yourself, help your team . . .

Cultivate A Strengths Focus

Take time to focus attention on the strengths you have as a team. Not just for a week or a day, but continuously. You have the freedom to focus your attention wherever you choose, and sometimes we don’t consciously take charge of our amazing ability to choose where we put our time, energy, and engagement. What we focus on has impact on how we think, how we see the world. If you choose to focus only on what’s wrong, the world looks like a pretty ugly place. If you choose to consciously focus on what’s right, what’s working, what you can expand, build upon, replicate, or grow—that has its own power.

Growth, motivation, and expansion happen more easily when the focus and energy are shifted to the areas, skills, and talents where we excel.  Everything else, including skills that need developing, will mature in response to this shift in focus.

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If you believe someone would enjoy and benefit from this post, please share it. Just click on the + Share button and you will see lots of options for sharing it with friends including email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Thanks!

Karlin Sloan is the founder and CEO of Karlin Sloan & Company, Ms. Sloan provides organization development consulting, training and executive coaching to clients the U.S., Europe, South America and Asia.  She is the author of Smarter, Faster, Better; Strategies for Effective, Enduring, and Fulfilled Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2006) and Unfear (January 2011).