How to Purposefully Promote Employees

Know strengths and weaknesses of your team before you decide to place people into new positions

“Tom Rath, author of ‘StrengthsFinder 2.0 – bestselling book focusing on tapping into your natural talents and overcoming your shortcomings said, “If you focus on people’s weaknesses, they lose confidence.”

We all have strengths, and we all have weaknesses. The key is knowing what they are and how to use your strengths and how to manage your weaknesses. As an owner of a business or manager of a company or team, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the staff is imperative when it comes to efficiency and productivity.

If you want to purposefully promote team members, you need to know their natural talents and how to turn them into strengths that fit the position they are given. As a Gallup Strengths Coach, I have clients take the Strengths Assessment. This is the first step in self-awareness when it comes to knowing the value a person brings to a team.

I often have entire teams take the assessment individually to review how each team member can best work in a group, how they can complement each other. The key is the take a talent and use it regularly to make it a strength while finding ways to manage the weaknesses. A common misconception is believing you can turn a weakness into a strength. The truth is you can only manage it.

Rath also said, “Across the board, having the opportunity to develop our strengths is more important to our success than our role, our title, or even our pay.”

My top two talents are Learner and Communications. As described by Gallup, I am a person who loves to learn, and intuitively knows how to best learn. My natural ability to pick up and absorb information quickly and to challenge myself to continually learn more keeps me on the forefront and as a communications person, I find it easy to put my thoughts into words.

According to Gallup research, people with communications as a talent are good conversationalist and presenters. These talents fit well in the work I do as a communications strategist, writer, and coach. However, analytics is not a strength of mine. In fact, it is in my bottom 10; I have learned to manage that by relying on others who are strong in analytics when I am seeking to collaborate with others on projects. It’s the same when building a team. You want to bring people together who have varied strengths and who can help make up for each other’s weaknesses. Knowing my weaknesses is just as important as knowing my strengths but I don’t focus on the weaknesses. I am aware of them, but my focus is on sharpening the saw, making my talents true strengths.

As owners, managers, and leaders, you can benefit by having this information about your team members. Once identified, people can be coached to reach goals and become better leaders.

When you are looking to promote someone to a management or to a leadership position, know the strengths and team the person up with people who can fill the gaps and help manage weaknesses.

Vanessa Denha Garmo is the founder of Epiphany Communications & Coaching. She is a certified life and leadership Coach and a Communications Strategist and writer. Her company is the Communications consulting company for MIRA