Four ways to help employees uncover their personal strengths

Strong leaders know that their success is not measured by their own personal achievements but instead by the success of their employees. It is important to take the time to analyse the attributes of new and existing employees in order to make the most of them. Try to learn fully about their passions and interests in order to help bring out strengths that they may not even know they had.

Empower your employees

To feel comfortable enough in a workplace that your strengths shine through you have to feel empowered. Bosses can empower their employees in three different ways. Firstly, you must provide the right training to enable your workers to do the tasks necessary. Secondly, you need to motivate people. This can be done by introducing employee incentives or rewards. Finally, you should clear the path for their success; you should remove anything in the company’s control that may prevent them from being the best version of themselves.

Ask

Go straight to the source. Ask your team members about what they believe to be their abilities and passions. Having conversations with staff about what they view as their best traits shows that you value this information, and want to make sure that these abilities are being utilised most effectively.

Observe the past

Whether an employee is new to the team, or has been around for longer, it is important to look back on previous work to really find where your employees strengths really lie. Look for previous major successes and what skills they used while doing this. Once you are aware of this, you can assign employees to tasks that bring out strengths that are specific to them.

Allow an employee to test drive a new role

It is possible that an employee’s strengths could blossom in a role different from the one that they perform day-to-day. Allow your employees to shadow co-workers to find out about their roles and responsibilities. This test-drive might spark new ideas about increased value from the employee, and allow you to see where a role-shift may make sense for the individual. At the end of the day, you want to get the best out of your employees.