Over the years, I have participated in a number of leadership assessments. Almost all emphasize the importance of leading from strength. Leaders are taught to find other people or to implement systems to compensate for weaknesses. It is appropriate that strengths are the first thing to be assessed as an organization begins planning for the future. Strengths are internal factors that help achieve success. Strategic planners begin by identifying sources of data. Determine what areas of your organization you seek to examine to find your strengths. Identify measures of strengths. Understand why leading from strength is important. When leaders complete this exercise, they will be in a better place to figure were the organization should head in the future.

GEN (R) Wesley Clark said, “I’ve never met an effective leader who wasn’t aware of his talents and working to sharpen them.” (Rath, T. & Conchie, B.). Think about the leading edge of a chisel. A woodworker doesn’t try to cut wood with the sides of the chisel. With enough force, one could certainly cut wood with the side of a chisel, but its strength comes at the leading edge, where the user carefully refines the two planes that intersect at the tip into a fine edge. A well sharpened chisel will cut most wood with simple hand pressure. While it is possible to build furniture with only a chisel, saws, planes, and clamps help the chisel be part of a team of tools that can build many things easily. It cannot hold well. Long cuts are better performed by a saw. Flattening is ideal for the plane. When it comes to trimming away wood from tenons, refining saw cuts, and creating mortises for joints the strength of the chisel’s sharp tip, make it the perfect tool. The chisel is an ancient tool, yet still occupies space in almost every modern wood shop because of its strengths. Like knowing the strengths of your tools, knowing the strengths of you and your organization helps you and other leaders identify your future based on your strengths.

Organizations often begin assessing strengths by asking only the invited planners what they view their strengths to be. Doing that is like asking an employee to write his or her own annual evaluation! Plan time to invite observations of others such as

• Employees
• Customers
• Stockholders
• Community members where you have facilities
• Vendors, and
• Peers.

Each of these groups sees your organization differently. They may see things as strengths you do not recognize yet are very important to your current level of success. Collect these observations as you analyze where your strengths are.

Organizations work in many different areas. I ran a small nonprofit for several years. One of the things I missed from my time in the military was easy access to legal advice. I had two lawyers whose job was to keep the command team out of trouble by vetting their ideas and orders. There were a number of times, in my nonprofit, I worried that there were legal issues I was not aware of in our operations.

Other areas to think about include

• Operations
• Human Resources
• Internal and external communications
• Industry trends and how your strengths remain relevant
• Quality controls
• Leadership now and moving forward
• Employee education, and
• Safety

This list could be longer. Adapt it to your organization and your needs. The list should be similar whether your organization is a team of engineers in the automotive industry, or a small nonprofit medical clinic in a remote community. The details however will be different.

As you work through this process, you may notice areas you expected to find as strengths are really weaknesses. Note that, but do not focus on those weaknesses now. Return to them when you get to the part on evaluating your weaknesses.

For example, you recognize in operations, you are the best widget maker in the world. As you analyze your leadership and employee education, you realize your leaders are all older. You have done little to develop the next generation of leaders. Without strong leaders in the future, your organization risks losing the top spot as widget manufacturer. You can say, “Hey, we are working on strengths in this exercise.”, and ignore what you just learned. Instead, not that weakness and evaluate it in the next step.

Anyone can pick up a ruler and tell you the length of an object. The question is what does the length matter? Measuring strengths can be difficult. For example, in the length example, are you measuring in millimeters or inches? Having a common language about the things you measure helps everyone understand the significance of the thing being measured.

There are a number of ways to measure strengths. Data will play an important role in this respect. Everyone needs to agree on what to measure and what appropriate units of measure are. In 1999, NASA crashed a $125 million weather orbiter into Mars because some engineers uses imperial units rather than metric. It is important that everyone uses the same units of measure as you analyze your strengths.

Organizations use several common means of measuring strengths. Use the scope of your activity to measure ROI, stakeholder satisfaction, staff retention, and other measures. Determine how well is your organization achieving goals. Identify how well your organization uses it guiding principles to accomplish its mission and vision.

The US. Army evaluates leaders in a number of areas. One is how many Soldiers pass an annual fitness test. War is hard work. The Army knows Soldiers must be fit regardless of their job to fit and win our nation’s wars. Use this example as a way to identify what you should measure and what metrics actually identify strengths.

Your organization’s strengths are like the sharp edge of a woodworker’s chisel. Strengths help you cut through resistance and achieve your organization’s mission. As you develop your vision of the future, identifying and analyzing strengths help your organization determine how to apply them to the challenges you face. Strengths are internal factors you control. Data helps identify strengths. Use a common means of measuring so you have universal understanding. Examining strengths is the first step with the SWOTAR model and need to be used with the next step, examining weaknesses. Look for that post next month.

References

– (ND) Some famous unit conversion errors. (PDF) National Aeronautics and Space Administration. https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/weekly/6Page53.pdf. Retrieved February 28, 2025

Chimonyo, Y. (2024). Organizational effectiveness: A guide to assessing organizational effectiveness. The Human Capital Hub.https://www.thehumancapitalhub.com/articles/organizational-effectiveness-a-guide-to-assessing-organizational-effectiveness- Retrieved February 27, 2025

Kinicki, A. & Williams, B. (2008). Management; A practical introduction. (3d Ed.). McGraw Hill Irwin. New York, NY.

Morreale, S (October 21, 2009). Executive Strategic Thinking. [Training Presentation] Command Training Series: Executive Development Course. New England Association of Chiefs of Police. Held at Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI

Rath, T, & Conchie B. (2008) Strengths based leadership; Great leaders, teams and why people follow. Gallop Press. New York, NY.

(c) 2025 Christopher St. Cyr