If you’re unfamiliar with your strengths and weaknesses, you’re approaching your professional development blindfolded. How can you play your best hand without knowing your cards?
According to Gallup, employees who use their strengths at work outperform their coworkers. They're also three times more likely to express having a high quality of life, six times more engaged with their work, 8% more productive, and 15% less likely to look for work elsewhere.
It’s often easier to pick out our faults than our strengths. We’re most critical of ourselves and more forgiving of others. But you can only leverage your strengths to enjoy increased professional development if you know what they are.
What are employee strengths?
Employee strengths are the skills, abilities, and personality traits a worker contributes to the team in a way that exceeds expectations. Here are some potential strengths:
Skills
Abilities
- Coding
- Specific software knowledge
- Industry expertise
- Language proficiencies
Personality traits
- Amicable
- Empathetic
- Easy-going
- Non-combative
- Detail-oriented
- Adaptable
These attributes are often mentioned in job descriptions, so employees can speak to them when applying or interviewing to show their skills align with the role.
You can also leverage them to achieve higher work performance and long-term professional goals on the job. If you’re a good communicator, for example, you might not shy away from asking for a raise. Maybe you’re an excellent leader — you might take charge of projects to get your manager’s attention.
What are good employee strengths?
According to Pew Research, the labor market values analytical, fundamental, and interpersonal skills the most. Here are five of those skills:
1. Communication
Good communication is considered a top strength at work. Workplaces bring together various personalities, and clearly communicating yourself to executives, managers, and coworkers is necessary to perform duties efficiently and deliver high-quality work.
Likewise, when dealing with clients and customers, written and verbal communication that represents your organization with professionalism and clarity is integral to the health of your career and the business itself.
2. Problem-solving
Analytical thinkers often excel at problem-solving, but anyone can practice. Skilled problem solvers are creative thinkers that embrace flexibility — because you never truly know what a workday or project entails.
These individuals are solution-oriented. They assess the problem, recognize available resources, and build a strategy to overcome it.
3. Emotional intelligence
Workers with high emotional intelligence have strong self-awareness and pay better attention to their coworkers' moods and motivations. This helps teams avoid conflict and find solutions with empathy. Plus, understanding your own emotions makes them easier to recognize in others.
If you notice a coworker’s frustration, you’ll recall what that feels like and offer help. Developing emotional intelligence requires interpreting body language and other non-verbal communication to read between the lines and address what the person’s saying.
4. Collaboration
No job exists in a vacuum — every profession requires teamwork. Team-oriented workers see the bigger picture, which might make them more likely to ask for help or assist others. They understand that their work contributes to a whole, so they’re less defensive if their ideas aren’t chosen and more willing to collaborate.
These employees are also often more dependable. They understand that others’ work depends on their time management, so they’re typically more proactive to avoid holding up a project.
5. Trustworthiness
Managers want to know they can trust their team to be self-motivated and accountable for their actions. Trustworthy employees are transparent about their abilities, professional, and responsible with sensitive information.
Managers have their own responsibilities and value employees they don't have to worry about.
How to identify your strengths and weaknesses
Enjoy further career development by understanding your proficiencies. Here are a few ways to pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses:
1. Identify what you enjoy and dislike doing
Writing down what you do and don’t enjoy at work is a great way to understand your natural inclinations. Here are a few questions to kick-start your brainstorming:
-
What motivates me?
-
What work do I put off?
-
What tasks are my favorite to complete?
-
What work accomplishment am I most proud of?
-
Why do coworkers come to me for help or advice?
-
When do I turn to coworkers or managers for help or advice?
2. Re-acquaint yourself with role responsibilities
Hiring managers look for candidates with a specific skill set to excel in their job, and you were hired because you fit the bill.
Ask your company’s recruitment team for your job posting to re-acquaint yourself with the skills, competencies, and attributes your organization wanted. Also consider any strengths emphasized during the job interview, onboarding process, or performance reviews.
3. Ask for feedback
Your manager has likely highlighted your strengths and weaknesses and considered these when making assignments or encouraging you to get out of your comfort zone, for example.
Team members might have also noticed proficiencies and blind spots. While we often feel uncomfortable facing our faults, constructive feedback from managers and colleagues helps us develop self-awareness.
4. Review your notes
Look over everything you’ve collected to find consistency. Some strengths and weaknesses might fly off the paper. If one of your biggest accomplishments was successfully negotiating a new contract, you might have the power of persuasion.
But many skills are hidden within broader talents. If you’re a good negotiator, you likely have strong active listening, problem-solving, and communication skills, too.
Likewise, if your most significant failure was consistently missing deadlines, time management might be a weakness. Work on decision-making, self-discipline, and being a good team player to turn those into talents.
How to improve your strengths and weaknesses
Self-improvement is a mixture of strategizing and seeking support. After you've analyzed your strengths and weaknesses, make a list of areas of improvement and set SMART goals — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely — to work toward refining these areas.
Focus on improving weak areas and building the habit of leveraging strengths. If you figured out you avoid presentations because of nerves, sign up to give a talk at an upcoming conference to practice and grow comfortable with public speaking.
Your manager or human resources may also have support resources. Inquire about professional development budgets or opportunities like coaching, upskilling initiatives, and reimbursements or incentives for certification programs.
You might feel nervous acknowledging weak areas with managers. But showing your growth mindset sets you apart.
Manager strengths and weaknesses
When managers don’t thrive, their whole team suffers. Low resilience lowers team performance, low agility from leaders means low agility from teams, and a lack of strategic thinking skills means less innovation.
Managers need to be aware of their weaknesses to prevent them from trickling down. If you’re a new manager struggling to excel — and whose teams are dealing with the consequences — you’ll benefit greatly from strengthening your soft skills.
Here are a few key leadership skills to support your whole team:
Vulnerability
Leaders are often expected to project all-knowing perfection. It takes incredible humility for managers to admit they don't have all the answers. But recognizing your flaws is necessary to build employee trust.
Being transparent about your weaknesses will help employees feel confident to confront their own.
Empathy
Good managers understand their workforce is their greatest asset and pay attention to protecting their energy. Managers with poor empathy skills could alienate their team, exhaust their workforce beyond repair, and increase turnover.
Empathetic managers have never been more valuable. According to Gallup, 19% of U.S. workers categorize their mental health as fair or poor, and 40% agree their jobs have harmed their mental health.
Beyond the human toll, poor mental health is costly to a business. The study found that employees with poor mental health miss five times more work, which lowers productivity, profits, and employee retention.
Good managers understand their workforce is their greatest asset and pay attention to protecting their energy. Managers with poor empathy skills could alienate their team, exhaust their workforce beyond repair, and increase turnover.
Confidence
Humans naturally mimic one another. Good managers should project the attitude they want to see from their workers. When they’re pessimistic, frustrated, and easily rattled, their workforce mimics these behaviors.
When they project confidence, optimism, and gratitude, employees behave similarly, making everyone feel happier with their work.
Great managers also know how to directly breed confidence, like recognizing achievements or employee strengths in performance reviews.
Accountability
Managers that hold themselves accountable lead by example. They express that it’s better to learn from mistakes and quickly move toward solutions instead of evading accountability or pointing fingers.
This is another great way to encourage growth rather than a fixed mindset.
Resilience
The road to achieving a goal is rarely linear. Good managers have cognitive flexibility and can pivot quickly to address roadblocks. They approach challenges with a sense of resilience and charge forward with patience for the process and the team members supporting them.
A royal flush
Whether you’re just starting your career or at the top of your game, there’s always room for personal and professional growth.
Become familiar with your employee strengths and weaknesses to know the hand you’re playing with, so you can promote proficiencies to get noticed by higher-ups and improve upon weak areas to strengthen your overall performance.
You might feel hesitant to learn more about yourself, worried about what you’ll find. But you can only work with what you know. Start small, asking people you trust like a friend or family member to discuss your strengths and weaknesses, working your way up to coworkers. Remember: nobody’s perfect.
-1.png)
