Chapter 2: Your Natural Leadership Strengths--Capitalizing on Your Knowledge, Skills, and Personal Qualities

Overview

Rhino Records has produced a compilation entitled Golden Throats: The Great Celebrity Sing-Off. It features talented movie and TV stars singing rock, folk, and blues classics. It includes William Shatner (of Star Trek fame) singing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Mr. Tambourine Man"; Jack Webb (of Dragnet fame) singing "Try a Little Tenderness"; Sebastian Cabot singing "It Ain't Me Babe" and "Like a Rolling Stone"; Andy Griffith singing "House of the Rising Sun"; and Leonard Nimoy (also of Star Trek fame) singing "Proud Mary" and "If I Had a Hammer." The album is listed in Rhino Records' comedy collections section. These talented actors can sing perhaps better than I can, but they sure don't sound like the legends that originally performed these classics.

Leaders should not expect to be talented in all phases of their industry and, frankly, they shouldn't even try. For you to be an effective leader, helping your team help itself, you need to focus on your natural strengths. You are not going to be good at all things. This chapter will help you to take a look at yourself and decide what talents you bring to the table. It will ask you to develop plans to more consciously capitalize on those natural strengths and discover how to cover the other skills your team must have to excel.