Get to know your strengths and weaknesses

Editor’s note: Michelle Stockman works with Little Rock-based Arkansas Capital Corp. to promote entrepreneurship development around the state. Stockman earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University-Chicago in communications and fine arts, and earned a master’s in entrepreneurship from Western Carolina University. Her thoughts on business success appear each week on The City Wire.

Management pioneer Peter Drucker has studied businesses and business leaders for more than 50 years. His writings have spanned the globe and are taught in countless MBA programs. Through the Drucker Foundation, “Drucker Societies” have popped up across the country where like minded professionals meet to network and discuss Drucker’s theories. 


A recent Kansas City Drucker group gathered to talk about leadership through “managing oneself.” This topic was first published by Drucker in the Harvard Business Review in January 2005, and it applies to entrepreneurs, business men and women, community leaders and countless others in leadership positions. This is really a lesson for all of us.



The idea that Peter Drucker brought to us regarding “managing oneself” focuses on the fact that few of us are prodigies like Mozart or da Vinci; likewise the average person needs to work toward such greatness. In simple terms, we need to learn to develop ourselves. Through discovering our true strengths and weaknesses, we are better able to place ourselves where we can make the greatest contributions. This also includes knowing when it is time to move on to another area of leadership when your development has grown past your current position.

Drucker notes, “Throughout history, people had little need to know their strengths. A person was born into a position and a line of work: the peasant’s son would also be a peasant; the artisan’s daughter, an artisan’s wife; and so on. But now people have choices. We need to know our strengths in order to know where we belong.”

One tool to utilize in uncovering your strengths is through feedback analysis. After making a key decision or taking an action, grab a moment to write down what you expected to happen as a result. Several months later, go back to that decision or action and write down the actual results and compare that with your earlier expectations. This feedback analysis will give you a less biased insight into your true strengths or weaknesses as you should see trends appearing over time in participating in this practice.

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is critical as a leader as it will help you understand the type of people you need to hire around you, what areas you may need to improve as a leader and what you can do to further improve your strengths. Like creating a strategic plan for your business, discovering yourself from a different perspective allows you to create a strategic leadership path for yourself.

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Stockman can be reached at [email protected]