Strengths and weaknesses – two sides of the same coin

In my last post I spoke of change as a journey and of my propensity to be other than I want to be. In a comment, Carolyn Stewart called these propensities “our perpetual weaknesses” (I like that term) and asked about my thoughts on the relationship between our perpetual weaknesses and our strengths. That is a very good question and I thought it worthwhile discussing it here.

I see our strengths and weaknesses like the double helix - inextricably intertwined. In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (dark and light) are described as complementary opposites within a greater whole.  Steve Jobs used another metaphor when he said, “In most cases strengths and weaknesses are the two sides of the same coin. A strength in one situation is a weakness in another, yet often the person cannot shift gears. It’s a very subtle thing to talk about strengths and weaknesses because almost always they’re the same” (Quotefancy). One of the difficulties we can face as we try to get better at what we do, is that we don’t understand the relationship between these two sides of the coin.

The problem is that our strengths are central to who we are and we are naturally drawn to (even driven towards) the activities that exercise our greatest interests and competencies. They are what gives us most joy and meaning. Hence, we find it difficult to shift gears to move into a less compelling mode even though we know that we need to.

I can remember back to a job interview many years ago – before I was a principal – and I was asked what I thought my greatest weakness was and I said it was that I loved the creative, cognitively challenging work of developing new approaches and systems, and implementing them (a strength), but I did not like the day-to-day work of maintaining those systems and ensuring they are consistently implemented. That aspect bored me because my brain had already shifted to the next big idea.

If you asked me a similar question today, I would still identify that as a “perpetual weakness”. But it would not loom anywhere near as large as it once did. What has changed? Doing the creative, cognitively challenging work of innovating and developing new ways of doing things is still a great love – it still brings me great joy and meaning. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is that I now have purposes that are greater. And these greater moral purposes drive me to mitigate the excesses and misapplications of my strengths. Here’s what I think is different:

1.       I have been able to compensate this weakness by ensuring that I have people with complementary strengths on our leadership team; and I have ensured they have latitude to express their strengths. In the process of our working together over years, we have each come to value the strengths of the others and allowed them to influence us and expand what we value as well as expanding the repertoire of the work we are each able to do.

2.       I have developed greater self-awareness of who I am and greater emotional self-control. As a result, I now have more self-discipline to curb the extremes of my strengths and strengthen my weaknesses. For example, I know I work best in the early morning and in the past I have saved that time for doing the activities that I love because they do require extreme focus and quiet; but now I also give that time over to do things that I have to get done, but don’t really want to do. I find that I can motivate myself to do these things in the early morning and even find joy in them. I also now appreciate that this different kind of work gives certain parts of my brain much needed rest. Now that I know myself better, I can balance this so that one does not take over the other, but I continually make decisions about how to use this valuable time to achieve the greatest overall benefit for all (including me).

3.       I now have a much greater understanding of the need for and, therefore, valuing of, how important systematically and consistently implementing processes, structures and systems is to the health of a whole school system and to the development of effective learning culture. How tiring would life be for our staff if my propensity to invent and innovate went unchecked! Therefore, greater moral purpose with regards to care for staff (and what is important for students) has enabled me to curb the excesses of my strengths but also to make sure I use my strengths to address teacher workload issues (for example) in creative ways.

4.       An increased commitment to the fact that it is not all about me has helped. Ensuring I experience joy, when it is negatively impacting others, is not okay. But always putting my needs at the end of the queue is not okay either. Therefore, a greater understanding that there is a middle ground or balance which I must continually assess and adjust. I am now much better at bracketing my own needs, when others’ needs are at the forefront; but I am also much better at taking my own temperature and making changes to ensure my own health within the organization as well.

Therefore, once again, the journey of change is not one of arriving at a destination in which “I have changed for good”, but rather it is a journey of embracing all the disparate parts of myself and of making the most of them through increased self-awareness, self-control, self-discipline, awareness of others, increased moral purpose and increased knowledge and understanding of what is needed in education.

Growth and development across the multiple dimensions of the social, emotional, intellectual and the moral has led to a more integrated narrative of who I am in which all the different parts of me are woven together into a more cohesive personal and professional life. But it is a work in progress! More about this in later posts.

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou.

Lesley

PS Please follow this link if you would like to receive email alerts and information