Play to Your Strengths: Part 1

I don't know exactly how many years ago it was that I was at a leadership conference where Reggie McNeal was the speaker - it's possible it was almost ten years ago. But I vividly remember something he said that began to radically change my life. I wrote it down word for word and it's stuck with me ever since. It seems so simple and obvious, and yet it's also very counter-cultural and feels somewhat rebellious.

The quote was this: "My best chance at making my biggest contribution is to get better at what I'm already good at." Now on the surface it may sound like a "duh" sort of thing, but when we dig deeper we find that we don't necessarily believe that to be true. No, rather than build on my strengths, I need to shore up my weaknesses! I need to become the "well-rounded" leader! (I'm sure someone much smarter than me has written in depth about that myth somewhere.) After all, who wants to follow someone who is riddled with weaknesses?

We do live in a culture that is more fixated on weaknesses than strengths. Consider the child that brings home a report card with one A, 5 B's and a C. Which grade gets the most attention? I'm guessing that while the A gets some praise, the C gets the most scrutiny.

If I were to ask you what you think your strengths are, you may not know. Or, you might simply be afraid to say - after all, what if I disagree? Besides, it can sound pretty arrogant to talk about your strengths in the first place. But if I were to ask what some of your weaknesses are, you could rattle those off all day!

It almost feels like cheating to develop my giftedness, to harness my strengths, to practice improving at what I already enjoy doing. But I believe that Reggie has nailed it here and we should all be doing whatever we can to develop our strengths

I think this is a very Biblical concept that can be seen in several places. Let me quickly mention two. First off is the analogy of the body. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12 that the body of Christ (just like a natural body) is made up of many different parts and each one is important, regardless of whether or not we esteem it as such. He encourages all parts to be valued and to do their job, and in Ephesians 4:16 points out that we all grow up in Christ as "each part does its work."

A practical application of this same truth is seen in Acts 6:1-7, where the apostles recognized a need but knew it would infringe upon their own ministry and giftedness. Rather than spread themselves too thin, they delegated it to others.* The results was that "the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith."

* There is so much good stuff on leadership in this passage. We'll come back to it down the road.

I hope you buy into the idea of playing to your strengths, getting better at what you do best, and you've written Reggie's quote down somewhere close by. Once you've accepted the importance of developing your giftedness, you're ready to get down to the nitty gritty of actually doing it. I'll dive into that in tomorrow's post.