Strength And Weakness — Decoded — Can Our Strength Be Our Weakness As Well?
Written by: Manoj Gopalani, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
The term strength can be interpreted in many ways. A general definition for our purpose would be a skill which a person has and is above average on the same.
Let’s illustrate it with an example:
Let’s assume Ravi is good at running and can run 100 meters in 15 seconds while most students in his age group can only do it in 18 seconds or so. So, he is in the top 10% – 15% of the group. While in high jump he can only do 4 feet and so is in the bottom 40% of the students in his group.
Given the example above what would we term as Ravi’s strength? But obviously, he is a more gifted runner than a high jumper.
Now imagine you are heading to a university where Ravi has applied and you have a position open under the Runner quota and also under the High Jumper quota. Given the choice under which quota you would allocate the seat to Ravi?
Ravi should be allocated the seat under the Runner quota as his potential to excel would be higher for running.
So, while Ravi has a talent for both running and high jumping, because he has a natural inclination to running and is performing better in running his major strength would be running and his lesser strength would be high jumping. Now if Ravi invests time in training his major strength could blossom to be able to beat the world record or maybe get close enough to challenge the same.
Although we generally speak in terms of strength and weakness, I would avoid the term weakness and use the term lesser strength.
But can strength be a weakness as well? When done to an extreme strength can have its own challenges.
If a person is very focused on the 100-meter run which requires them to expend maximum energy in a short span of time and they use the same principle for a marathon, they will not be able to complete the race.
Let me take a mindset example. Let’s assume that I am a very cordial kind of person and would like to include everyone before I take a decision. So, I keep on seeking inputs from every person so that I can make them feel included. Well, if it is a small team size, it might work – but if the team size is 100 or 500, how will that work? A decision needs to be made but since I am a person who cares about input from all – I am not ready to make the decision. So being inclusive is a good strength but when taken to an extreme it backfires. The key in all this is to leverage your strength while doing a balancing act keeping the GOALS in mind.
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Manoj Gopalani, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Manoj - is a Life coach by passion and IT/Management professional by design. He is an accomplished leader who has been coaching individuals to unleash their potential. Individuals who have been coached by him have grown multiple folds in various aspects of life.
His coaching style reflects his varied experience and exposure which include Design Thinking from MIT Sloan, Gallup Strength-Based Coaching, his spiritual upbringing, Graphology, Reiki, and so on.
His Mission states, "We all are one big family to help each other on our journey of life."
