Individuals and groups are always stronger when they have their successes and strengths in focus – and will excel only by amplifying strengths, never by fixing weakness.

As Peter Drucker said “The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths in ways that make a system’s weaknesses irrelevant.” Great leadership is all about strengths.

Everything in management is filtered through the way we do inquiry – and many organisations have a deficit bias, rather than a strengths bias – yet it is the strengths that fuel the opportunities. And great leaders see strengths and opportunities that no one else notices, and evoke forward momentum.

When people play to their strengths, engagement soars, and active disengagement (which costs US firms $300b a year) can plummet. In leading companies, the engagement: disengagement ratio stands at 10:1; in average companies this is 2:1. High-engagement organisations have 3.9 times the earnings-per-share growth rate.

Engaged employees are more productive, profitable, customer-focused, innovative, collaborative, and growth-oriented.

A strength-based focus does more than perform – it transforms, with a multiplier effect. Too often companies starve opportunities with their focus on the problematic. Innovation is found at the intersection of points of strengths. As different groups combine, the connection and combination of strengths is magnified outwards. And with this, many leaders are combining the character strengths of wisdom, courage and humanity by bringing more humanity into their communities, through sustainability projects. Sustainable value creation is bringing what is meaningful outside, inside.

When we unite the strengths of markets with global issues, the return for society and the business can be exceptional. Strengths soar when there’s a purpose bigger than the organisation.

Author: Gail La Grouw. Insight Mastery Program Director, and Strategic Performance Consultant for Coded Vision Ltd.