First-Time Managers Leading Themselves with Strengths

Part 3 of First-Time Managers Leading Themselves with Strengths. The thing that makes you good at this job is the same thing that makes you hard to work for. Not two different things.

In the last article I asked you to write one sentence for each of your top five, in the shape of "Under pressure, this will make me ______." If you actually did it, you have a list. And if the list is any good, some of it is uncomfortable to read.

This article is about what that discomfort actually is. Because the first instinct is to read those sentences as a list of flaws and start looking for the part of yourself that needs fixing. That is the wrong read. There is nothing in there to repair. There is something in there to catch, which is a different job and a much easier one.

The thing those two stories had in common

In the first article I told you my Competition® had me competing with my own direct reports on a scoreboard only I could see, and that within about six months I was Michael Scott.

In the second I told you my Futuristic® walked a team out of a meeting with no idea what to do on Tuesday.

I never said what those two things had in common.

Same mistake. Twice.

Both times it was one of my strongest themes doing exactly what it does. Not a weakness sneaking in through the back. Not a bad day. My Achiever® is why I finish things. My Competition® is why I was number one. Those were never the problem. The problem was how and when I used them.

There are no bad talent themes. There are bad settings. A suit and tie looks amazing at a five star steakhouse (mmmmm, steak) and completely ridiculous on the beach. Nothing changed about the suit.

Helps and hinders, not balconies and basements

If you have been around CliftonStrengths® for a while you have probably heard somebody talk about balconies and basements. Gallup prefers Helps and Hinders, and so do I, because it describes what the theme is DOING instead of what floor you are on.

Underneath the vocabulary is a question I ask myself constantly. Is the way I am naturally thinking, feeling and behaving helping me right now, or hindering me?

Helping and hindering are both the theme doing its job. It is you being you. What changes is the setting, and who it helps versus who it costs.

And no, this is not a you problem. All 34 themes have both. Every person reading this has one.

Same theme. Different room.

A hinder is not a weakness, and you do not fix it the same way

A weakness is something you are not good at.

That is not what is happening here.

One of my people told me he had worked a twelve hour day and needed to go home. My brain and my face both said the same thing at the same time. Lazy bum worked a half day.

Because I had pulled an all-nighter.

Nobody has ever called my work ethic a weakness. That is exactly the point. My Achiever® is not a gap in me. It is the strongest thing I have, and I had it aimed at a tired person who had done nothing wrong.

The two do not get handled the same way.

A weakness you work around. You hire for it, you partner on it, you build something that covers it.

You cannot work around a hinder. It is your best stuff. It will keep showing up, because it is the same thing that makes you good at this.

So there is nothing in there to repair. There is only something to catch.

The fifth theme I have not shown you yet

Individualization®.

Helps: give me a list of thirty people with their talent themes and I can build you the teams, show you how each person shows up at their best, and tell you how to motivate every single one of them.

Hinders: five people ask me the same question and get five different answers, because I am answering the PERSON and not the question. Then two of them compare notes.

And now I am the manager who plays favorites.

(Do I play favorites? Absolutely. Ask any of them.)

That one took me years to see. I still do it.

It is not a flaw sitting next to my Individualization®. It IS my Individualization®, doing exactly what it does, in a room where it costs me instead of paying me.

Five rooms where your strongest theme starts costing you

Your hinder is not a mystery. It has an address.

It is not random either, which is the good news, because a thing that is not random is a thing you can see coming. Pressure is the trigger. A deadline, a number you are behind on, a conversation you have been avoiding. That is usually when a theme switches from helping to hindering.

So here are five places to look. You are not hunting for what the theme makes you do. You are looking for WHERE it costs you.

1. The deadline. When the clock is the loudest thing in the room, what do you start doing to people that you would never do on a normal Tuesday?

2. The number you are behind on. When you are down and you know it, who gets the version of you that is trying to close a gap instead of lead a person?

3. The conversation you have been avoiding. When you finally have it, does your strongest theme show up as courage, or as the thing that runs the other person over?

4. The night you did not sleep. What is your first thought when somebody else says they are tired? Be honest.

5. The project with your name on it. When it is yours and it is going badly, what do you take from your team without asking?

Add the setting

Go back to that list from the last article. The one nobody else sees.

Next to each sentence, add the setting. Not what the theme makes you do. WHERE it costs you.

Mine reads like this:

"Under pressure, my Achiever® makes me set a standard nobody can hit. It costs me when my direct report comes to me saying he worked a twelve hour day and needs to go home, and my brain and my face both say lazy bum worked a half day, because I pulled an all-nighter."

That is far too long to be one sentence, and it is the only version that is any use, because the setting is the entire point.

Do all five. Then put it down and go back to work.

Here is what happens over the next few weeks. You start to feel it coming up before it lands, instead of finding out next week, when you are asking yourself why nobody is doing what you told (demanded) them to do.

You are not looking for something broken in you. You are looking for a room.

Which one is yours?

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More in this series

Part 1: What Nobody Tells You When You Become a Manager for the First Time

Part 2: Why Naming Your CliftonStrengths® Themes Is Not the Same as Knowing Them

Part 3: When Your Strongest CliftonStrengths® Theme Starts Costing You (this article)

Part 4: How to Build a Management Rhythm Around Your Own CliftonStrengths® Themes

Part 5: How to Tell Your Team the Way You Work, Before They Have to Guess

If you are planning a workshop

I facilitate CliftonStrengths®, team development, and first-time manager workshops. Most new managers are never shown the difference between a weakness and a theme that is hindering them, so they spend their first year trying to fix the wrong thing. If your company is moving people into their first management role this year, connect with me on LinkedIn and tell me about it.

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