In order to be an effective leader there is a long list of softcore skills such as approachable, caring, cooperative, and influential and hardcore skills such as the ability to move things forward, business acumen and focusing on what matters. Additionally, there are people skills to consider as well. A few examples of people skills are a leader who asks for help, asks for others’ opinions and asks insightful and important questions. Now by no means is this a complete list and in fact, we could spend a significant amount of time adding to each category.

Where I am going with this is that almost all of the soft core, hard core and people skills can be learned. Certainly, for some leaders, it may take a fair amount of practice to perfect. Even then once you have honed your skills to the best of your ability, to be an exemplary leader with a distinct advantage over other leaders in and outside of your industry, you must have the ability to take your strengths and combine them with the strengths of your team.

So here is my challenge to you. Make a list of your team members and mark a star beside those who are contributing the most. Then write out beside each person’s name what they are best at doing. Now ask your self are you getting the most out of each person’s strengths and how can you better emphasize each person’s strengths. Lastly, ask yourself how will you know if you have made improvements in emphasizing your team’s strengths and write it down. This is something you should come back to every 90 to 100 days and take an assessment and see if you have moved the needle in the right direction.