“You cannot have faith in people unless you take action to inspire and develop them.” Sumantra Ghoshal
Defining Personal Strengths
Personal strengths are the inborn attributes that make each person a masterpiece. Each individual must recognize they possess unique strengths and the importance of their personal strengths to their life. The best investment one could make in themselves, family, friends, employer, and colleagues is to develop their natural strengths. Healthcare organizations that recognize and embrace every colleague’s strengths help colleagues to understand themselves. Utilizing these strengths to the benefit of the organization helps it to achieve its mission and vision. The cumulative power of maximizing strengths will make an incredible difference in all areas of the organization.
Our Greatest Assets
Colleagues in every role and every position – from the highest responsibility to the lowest-paid colleague – make the healthcare system function. All colleagues – no exceptions. On the other hand, colleagues can break an organization. Colleagues can provide a great customer experience or a terrible one. They can create best practices for quality care delivered to patients or provide poor quality of care. Colleagues can create a culture that heals or a culture that kills.
Colleagues ultimately hold the future success of healthcare in their hands. Leaders are dependent on what colleague strengths are, just as colleagues are dependent on what strengths their leaders possess. Colleagues will influence the culture, quality, and financial success of healthcare in every organization. Wise healthcare leaders embrace this fact. Leaders who can influence their colleagues by valuing and investing in their strengths will develop and propel the organization to its greatest potential.
The disappointing fact is that many people or colleagues do not truly understand their strengths. They settle for what they have experienced in life as their strengths from their past.
If a colleague was told in middle school that they are average in intelligence, their bar may get set there, and that is where they settle. People many times look externally for a new job, different colleagues or supervisor, a spouse or maybe having a child to make their life feel more valuable and meaningful. Sustaining fulfillment in life is found by focusing internally and by truly discovering and maximizing personal strengths and coming to understanding their unique purpose and passion in life. In our society, we often allow other people and life circumstances to define what a person may believe are their talents or strengths. This can result in self-limiting beliefs that are embraced by a person. Unfortunately, it seems the world mirrors these beliefs. Challenging colleagues to revisit their beliefs about their strengths requires personal self-reflection. Thoughts about them and believing they possess certain strength, are two entirely different things. Thinking is a process and believing is an action created by a transition in the mind. People need to be encouraged to explore and act on what they suspect or know their strengths to be. Individual strengths compound in an organization and are an internal driver of excellence.
Personal Strengths: Cultivating high performance and team excellence
