Strengths-based leadership gets leaders into impact quickly, as long as it keeps their weaknesses in view. If you only play to what you’re good at, you miss blind spots and leave company needs unmet. The ego tends to grow along the way.
Strengths-based leadership is an approach that builds tasks and teams around people’s most developed abilities. In 2023, Forbes asked 15 members of its Coaches Council how leaders can do more than “play to their strengths”, and why they should. I was one of them. Here are the 15 ideas in my own words.
Knowing what you do best helps you focus. It turns dangerous when it tips into arrogance. Awareness of your strengths also shows you your weaknesses, so you can be honest about them and staff your company around them, and the result is a team whose talents complete each other.
Source: Lillit Cholakian, NewGen Global Leaders.
Leadership means being the leader your people need right now. So you read the situation, adapt and respond, even where your strengths don’t help much. For most of us, strength grows through experience and through learning what we don’t yet know.
Source: JC Glick, Prodromos Leadership.
Effective leadership needs balance. If you only rely on your strengths, you miss the blind spots everyone has, and you don’t notice what you do that annoys others. That’s how overconfidence creeps in.
Source: Alex Draper, DX Learning Solutions.
Leaders get asked in every kind of situation, including the ones that don’t suit their strengths, and they still have to find answers for their team. The best of them know their weaknesses, work on them and build a support network of mentors. They come out of it wiser than before.
Source: Michael Timmes, Insperity.
This one is about awareness: What are you good at, what gives you energy, what drains you? With those answers, leaders can build teams on purpose that complement them and each other.
Source: Nikki Moberly, Big Breakthroughs.
The risk starts when you assume your weaker qualities don’t matter in a leadership role. A big-picture thinker may not enjoy diving into detail, and the one who can still do it when needed leads with more agility.
Source: Gabriella Goddard, Brainsparker Global.
There are two traps here. In the first, a leader sees themselves as a decisive self-starter, never listens to feedback and drags engagement down in the team. In the second, you focus on something just because you’re good at it. If you loathe doing it, it doesn’t count as a strength.
Source: Rajeev Shroff, Cupela Consulting.
We all have default styles we use without thinking. Sometimes you have to unlearn what you’re strong at to make room for new approaches. What got you this far rarely takes you further on its own.
Source: Liz Whitney, Cove.
Leaders should play to their strengths and also acknowledge and address their weaknesses by developing their skills and abilities continuously. Seeing development as a whole makes leaders more well-rounded and effective. In practice, that means one development plan for strengths and gaps, with measurable goals for both.
My contribution to the panel. Source: Cristian Hofmann, Empowering Executives, SUPERGROUP AG.
Before playing to your strengths comes a step many leaders skip: Knowing where those strengths really lie. The better you know your “fast lane”, the more you can stay in it and surround yourself with people and processes that cover the rest. That’s how you become an authentic leader people want to follow.
Source: Claire Chandler, Talent Boost.
Strengths have a lot to do with where your energy comes from. We’re all a blend of strengths and areas still to develop, and sometimes we have to work in the weaker ones to move things forward. What matters is how you recharge afterwards. What do you do to rest after a task outside your area of strength?
Source: Elliott Blodgett, Flyway.
When I play, I have fun; when I feel strong, I’m engaged. Leaders set clear objectives and direction, then encourage people to identify their strengths and preferred behaviours and to shape their own roles, which is what job crafting means. For teams to keep learning, job resources and demands need managing so that a culture of lifelong learning takes hold.
Source: Krumma Jónsdóttir, Positive Performances.
It’s human (and comfortable) to stick with what you’re good or even great at. Far too often, overusing a strength blinds you and derails success and performance. So acknowledge your innate strengths and work deliberately on your weaknesses.
Source: Joshua Miller, Joshua Miller Executive Coaching.
If you only ever play to your strengths, you stay in your comfort zone. Effective leaders work outside it regularly and adapt their skill set to the situation in front of them.
Source: Peter Boolkah, The Transition Guy.
Leaders need to know how to use the strengths of the people on their team to get the best out of them. That takes a balance between employees’ happiness and their contribution to the organisation.
Source: José Luís González Rodriguez, ActionCOACH.
Almost all 15 ideas describe the same movement: Strengths are the starting point, and the risk lies in overusing them. Strengths-based leadership works as long as someone checks honestly where their own strength is already hurting others.
I see this most often under pressure. Decisiveness turns into impatience, attention to detail turns into control. Assessments such as Hogan often make these tipping points visible before the team mentions them. How to turn a specific weakness around is the subject of Leadership development: 15 ways to turn leadership weaknesses into strengths.
Whether every weakness deserves development work, I doubt. Some gaps are better covered by someone on the team, as ideas 1 and 10 suggest. For strengths-based leadership, the useful question is which gap puts the role at risk and which one a good team can absorb.
Strengths-based leadership starts from the most developed abilities of the leader and the team and assigns work accordingly. It assumes that people perform better and keep more energy when they work in their strengths. The approach works best when weaknesses are managed deliberately alongside.
Yes, on the ones that are critical for the role. Other gaps can be covered by the team. Leaders who ignore their weaknesses entirely risk blind spots and overconfidence.
Look for two signals: What you’re good at, and what gives you energy while you do it. If only the first applies, it’s more likely a learned skill. Structured feedback, such as a 360-degree assessment like GLA360, shows whether the people around you see your strengths the way you do.
Usually under pressure or through overuse. If you play a strength in every situation, you often notice too late when it starts to hurt others. Regular feedback from your team is a good early warning system, and strengths-based leadership depends on it.
Further reading on hofmann.coach: Self-confidence: The most powerful weapon of a leader · 14 lessons for new leaders from executive coaches · About Cristian Hofmann, executive coach · Employee strengths: How leadership makes empowerment real
Note: This article goes back to the expert panel “How Leaders Can Do More Than ‘Play To Their Strengths’ (And Why They Should)” of the Forbes Coaches Council from 24 January 2023. The ideas are paraphrased; the commentary is from October 2026.
Cristian Hofmann is an executive coach in Zurich and Schaffhausen (MAS Coaching & Supervision BSO, Forbes contributor). Over more than 20 years he has coached more than 1,500 leaders: CEOs, executive boards and leadership teams in Switzerland, with measurably agreed goals and, on request, pay-for-results. More about Cristian Hofmann.
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