Capitalizing on the Strengths of Your Staff

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

An important strategy to engage staff is to know and encourage staff to use their strengths in their work. Investing in strengths can have a huge payback in the level of staff engagement. Gallup research indicates that seven in 10 employees (67%) who strongly agree that their manager focuses on their strengths are engaged in their work. When employees strongly disagree with this statement, the percentage of workers who are engaged in their work plummets to 2%. High engagement translates into higher profitability, better customer satisfaction, and lower turnover. When employees use their strengths, they have been shown to be 6x more engaged in their work and 7.8% more productive in their role.

Historically, performance management models have focused on fixing staff weaknesses or deficits. While managing weaknesses to meet role expectations does matter, part of the joy of being human is the recognition that we are all different and have unique gifts. Everyone has strengths and weakness. Talents are the areas in which we are naturally gifted, do almost effortlessly and hold the keys to our best work. Think about your own leadership role – some leaders are naturally gifted in their ability to build relationships, others are great communicators or very strategic in their planning.

When coaching employees, Gallup research has found that the world’s greatest managers report that they don’t waste their time focusing on employee weaknesses but instead draw out their talents. This is counter-intuitive to what most managers believe when they have the same expectations in every area for all their staff.

Ideally, organizations would use talent assessments such as the Clifton Strength Finders ® to learn about the unique gifts of their staff but many don’t. If this is not available, nurse leaders can observe their staff to learn about their natural talents, ask their peers and use good coaching questions. Four good questions to ask to discover talent include:

What do you do best in your role?
What do you enjoy most about the work you do every day?
What do you look forward to doing each day at work?
What hobbies do you have?

These questions will give the nurse leader coach insight into the natural talents of staff so they can individualize their approach to enhance the work experience and promote development to turn talents into strengths.

Read to Lead

Gallup First Break all the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers do Differently. New York: Gallup Press; 2016.