Much has been said and written about strengths-focused leadership and its application. The term is popular in research, management literature and often used to underpin service transformation. It is frequently viewed as a mechanism to support managers to become better leaders by focusing on their perceived strengths.
Some approaches focus on specific areas such as the four Cs of leadership: competence, connect, candour and character; or the four Ps of leadership: psychological safety, purpose, path and progress. These are based on the assumption that identifying and working on these areas will promote and facilitate better leadership.
However, this approach ignores the fact leadership is a process that is interconnected with people, systems and organisational policies. True strengths-focused leadership is a whole-system approach.
1. Lead with authenticity. Leading with authenticity – kindness, clarity of values, integrity, empathy and “doing the right thing” rather than “doing things right” is key. In children’s services, values, integrity and empathy are central to what we do and embedded within our organisations but authenticity is more than values. Authenticity is about being consistent across our personal and professional lives and being seen to be consistent. It is tempting to model our own leadership style on the leadership styles of others but – as US social work professor Brene Brown puts it – leadership is about “dropping the armour of who we think we need to be and be who we are”.
2 Focus on relationship-based practice. Relationship-based practice is at the heart of strengths-focused leadership. Making people, connectivity and relationships central to leadership changes the way we do things and what we focus on. Inspiring, enabling, empowering, demonstrating empathy and emotional intelligence are central to the process of enabling others, achieving collective understanding and utilising genuine co-production to enable others to achieve agreed collective outcomes.
Relational leadership practice is more than what happens in our one-to-one catch ups, more than exchanging knowledge through PowerPoint presentations at staff development days or focusing on organisational targets and key performance indicators. The task of leadership is not to focus on the technical procedures of social care but on sustained engagement with people. It is about connections, networks, sharing power, attending to the process of relationship building, inclusion, participation and is forward facing. It requires us to change our processes and leadership practice away from technically driven procedures and practices to developing inclusive network-sharing practices. It challenges hierarchies, accepted notions of what it is to be a manager, our organisational systems and in turn, quietly challenges us as leaders.
3. Identify and recognise strengths. Often we find it hard to identify and articulate our strengths. This is not helped by the fact organisational systems and supervision tend to focus on addressing weaknesses. By leading explicitly with your strengths you set a culture of “strength recognition” that enables others to identify and articulate their strengths publicly. Strength recognition is also about identifying potential to develop new strengths individually and within teams. People perform at their best when they are supported and challenged to build on their strengths within the workplace. Strength recognition throughout an organisation develops individuals, organisations and most importantly, changes working culture.
4. Collaboration is key. Leaders traditionally view systems at a strategic level within their own organisation or across integrated systems. Large amounts of time are spent thinking through the how, what and why of system integration. But systems are made up of or by people and we need connections with individuals, to place and with communities. Strengths-focused leadership should avoid focusing solely on the task-performance relationship and instead facilitate inclusive systems which promote and prioritise connections, autonomy, self-determination, choice, control and responsibility across the system.
5. Take time to develop your approach to leadership. The pressures of working in social care often result in performance indicators shaping leadership styles. Performance indicators matter and tell us an important story but can dominate the day to day. This pressure gets in the way of much-needed space and time for reflection. Senior leaders need time to develop leadership approaches as a team and consider key questions including: What is our leadership approach? How do we operate as a senior leadership team and how do we communicate this? How do we adopt a systematic strengths-focused leadership approach in all that we do? We usually know our strengths – we see them in action every day – but have we really identified and worked on our operational models as a leadership team?
