Soar With Your Strength

The study undertaken by Clifton and Nelson (1992) emphasize why we must focus and enhance our strengths while managing our weaknesses. They candidly elucidate the significant bearing of employees’ strengths and weaknesses have on the overall performance of the organization. According to them today’s business executives should abandon traditional views, focus on developing and utilizing employees’ strengths, and ardently examine the impact of weakness on overall company performance Consequently, they must confront stereotypical notions and beliefs concerning “training, promotion, and employee development. In chapter 5 and 6, Clifton and Nelson have explained how “strengths should be developed in the framework of mission in relation to others.”

Living a Mission Statement

In order to succeed in any business enterprise, we must have a mission we are intending to fulfill. Take for instance Mary Kay who launched a cosmetics empire not because she wanted profits but because she was driven by the mission to achieve. Mary narrates that she not only had the product and the passion to make it excel in the market but also the desire to make women achieve. However, she was frustrated as a woman since society did not recognize her efforts. In fact, Mary laments how she trained a salesman who later became her superior simply because he was a man. In her pursuits, Mary wanted to form a company, which respected women’s integrity, performance, hard work, and determination.

Clifton and Nelson (1992) contend that in organizational settings, “personal mission is rare, so rare that we hardly recognize people having it.” So often, we have lived without missions in our businesses. Consequently, we tend to promote furtherance of our objectives and de...

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...ieved. In essence, mission statements grow because they are nurtured by a strong sense of responsibility. The importance of nurturing relationships and managing them in an effective manner is paramount since organizations cannot develop in isolation but rather they develop and prosper when it enjoys cordial relationships with its stakeholders (Satterlee 2009).

References

Antonioni, D. (1994). Managerial roles for effective team leadership. Supervisory Management, 39(5), 3.

Brown, J. (1991). Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation. Organization Science, 2(1), 40-57.

Clifton, D. O. & Nelson, P. (1992). Soar with Your Strengths. New York, New York: Bantam Books.

Satterlee, A. (2009). Organizational Management and Leadership: A Christian Perspective. Roanoke, Virginia: Synergistics.