Playing to your people's strengths is the essence of great leadership, writes USTA CIO and executive coach Larry Bonfante.


Every human being has both strengths and areas requiring development. I find it fascinating that most organizations spend the majority of their time, effort and development resources trying to focus on improving a person’s weaknesses.

Now, granted, there are times when a specific weakness can become a fatal flaw, which makes it imperative to address the situation. However, most times all you do by training a person in their areas of deficit is take someone who is in essence an “F” student in a certain area and spending years turning them into a “D” student! Not a tremendous payback for the effort.

When I arrived in my current organization I was given a severance budget for all of the existing staff because none of them were worth keeping. I assured my new management that I would take this tack if necessary, but that I wanted to judge their worth on my own. After 90 days of deep investigation I found that the majority of the people were talented individuals who had simply been miscast!

If you play to your people’s weaknesses, they (and you) will fail. If you play to their strengths, they will succeed.

As a leader your focus shouldn’t be on “fixing” all of your people’s weaknesses (and we all have them!). Rather, you should find creative ways to ensure that you are allowing people to play to their strengths and doing the things they enjoy and are good at. This will ensure their success as well as the success of their projects and teams.

I am a Knicks fan (a painful admission these days!) and fondly remember when Pat Riley coached the team. Riley had led the Los Angeles Lakers to championships four times, coaching fluid, athletic, graceful players such as Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy. These teams were nicknamed “Showtime” because watching them was like watching poetry in motion.

When Riley came to the Knicks, he found himself surrounded not by quick, graceful athletes, but rather by tough, rugged players like Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley and Anthony Mason. Instead of trying to turn proverbial “plow horses” into “thoroughbreds,” Riley adapted his style to the talent he had at his disposal. This approach to playing to your people’s strengths is the essence of great leadership.

Larry Bonfante is CIO of the United States Tennis Association and the founder of CIO Bench Coach, LLC an executive coaching practice focused on transforming the human side of IT leadership. He can be reached at larry@ciobenchcoach.com.

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