Jaka Lindic is CEO of e2grow, which embeds engagement strengths throughout the employee lifecycle and integrates them into existing tools.
We’ve all heard about the importance of leadership in driving team engagement. After all, one of managers’ key responsibilities is keeping their team members aligned with each other and with overall organizational success. But by focusing on leaders’ ability to foster better engagement, we’re ignoring a critical truth: Every employee matters.
Let’s take a step back. Imagine a 10-person team. When it comes to one-on-one relationships within the team, the leader only participates in 20% of them. The majority of these relationships occur among the team members without direct involvement from the leader. So if we only focus on developing leaders’ ability to maintain strong interpersonal relationships, we leave 80% of workplace relationships unaddressed.
Here’s a controversial thought. If your employees are adding value, isn’t there always room for them to create even more? Every team member brings a unique set of strengths to the table, and whether these strengths are recognized and utilized can make or break team engagement. Strengths-based development is an effective way to ensure everyone is contributing their best.
How Employee Profiles Support Strengths-Based Development
With its focus on identifying each individual’s unique talents and using them to enhance performance and satisfaction, strengths-based development allows you to amplify what each person does best. An effective assessment method for this analysis is implementing a profiling system. These tools offer a structured way to see where individual strengths fit into the larger team dynamic. By providing a baseline for personalized development, employee profiles help ensure each team member’s growth is tailored and actionable.
Manufacturing organization Dowding was facing its industry’s severe shortage of workers. With the help of Beachy Consulting—a partner of my company, e2grow—Dowding launched a comprehensive strengths-based development program with a focus on fostering open and honest communication across the organization. First, team members completed personalized strength profiles to understand their unique capabilities. Then employees attended regular workshops to maximize their strengths and effectively communicate and collaborate within teams. Finally, leaders and employees practiced giving and receiving feedback and discussed how to align their strengths with team goals. As communication and trust improved, productivity and retention increased.
3 Recommendations For Scalable, Personalized Development
To effectively implement strengths-based development across your organization, it’s essential to focus on scalability, personalization and integration into daily processes. Here’s how.
1. Ensure Scalability: While in-person development like team coaching is valuable, it’s not always cost-effective at scale. Virtual training platforms, self-paced online modules and remote coaching are all scalable options that can make the development process more flexible. Then strategically incorporate in-person opportunities, such as experiential learning, so employees can directly apply new skills in real-world scenarios. This is key for fostering deeper understanding and generating the buy-in necessary for long-term behavioral change. When deciding which path to take, ask yourself, “What resources do we have available?”
2. Personalize Your Approach: Profiling tools provide a great foundation, but personalization is critical. Just because two people share the same strengths or personality traits doesn’t mean they’ll apply them in the same way. Give employees the tools and autonomy to explore and tailor their profiles to fit their individual working styles and team dynamics.
3. Integrate Profiles Into Daily Processes: Behavioral change is complex and requires time. It’s not enough to provide a profile and a one-time workshop. To achieve lasting change, integrate employee profiles into daily processes. For example, consider using them in performance reviews, cross-departmental collaboration or even during team meetings to align work assignments with individual strengths. By integrating this knowledge into everyday workflows, you can ensure profiles become part of the fabric of how teams operate and collaborate.
Invest In Everyone’s Strengths
So what’s the takeaway here? If you’re serious about creating high-performing teams, it’s time to rethink where you’re investing your development dollars. Don’t just focus on the leaders; invest in every employee. Equip them with the tools they need to understand their strengths, personalize their development and integrate these insights into their daily work. Because when everyone knows they count, the whole team thrives.
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