Monday morning I woke up to the sound of chain saws. The sound was coming from across the street at my neighbor, Brad’s house, where a small crew was dismantling a huge oak tree. As I looked closer at the scene, I noticed a large limb -actually, about half the tree - lying on top of the gazebo screen porch. The limb was so large that I could not actually see the roof of the gazebo. An even closer look revealed that part of the limb had busted through a window on the back of the house.
Apparently, there were dangerously high winds that swept through our neighborhood the previous night. I say apparently because I slept through it all.
Fortunately, no one was hurt, and the damage was minor. Still, you can imagine hearing a crash in the middle of the night and when you run to look out your bathroom window you see part of a tree protruding into the room. That is exactly what my neighbor experienced!
Later that day I had a chance to ask Brad what had happened. He showed me photos of what caused the tree to come apart and land in his house. While the tree looked completely healthy and strong on the outside, there was a deep spot of rot right where the tree trunk divided. There was no evidence whatsoever from the outside, but deep inside this tree had a flaw - a weakness that could not withstand the strong winds that rocked our world on Sunday night.
Trees have offered me different perspectives on life before; once again, I find myself pondering this incident. The tree appeared to be strong and healthy; it offered great shade and it provided a wonderful place to climb and have a quiet moment. Unbeknownst to us, the tree had a weak spot. For all the strengths and good qualities of this tree, they weren’t enough to compensate for the weak spot.
I can’t help but think about the years I have spent working with leaders and the many organizations that wanted me to focus on the leaders’ strengths. I always pushed back saying that I was happy to help these individuals further develop and use their strengths, but that I also felt we needed to understand their weak points. Some weaknesses are enough to derail the strongest leader – no amount of strengths can make up for the damage done by an unknown weakness.
Case in point: a brilliant, charismatic, innovative leader tasked with developing new products for his organization. Unfortunately, he had a weakness for believing he was always right. He would act like a bulldog digging his teeth into anyone who dared to suggest there were holes in this thinking. I watched him leave bite marks. I witnessed embarrassing moments of losing credibility with executives and board members. I heard him raise his voice and call people names if they dared contradict his view.
We tried coaching but he was unable to see his behavior as a weakness. Because of his intellect, the CEO had a tough time making the decision to let him go, but eventually he saw that the damage being done outweighed the benefits. In the end, his strengths were not enough to save him – he lost his job.
Knowing and utilizing our strengths is necessary, but it’s not sufficient. As unpleasant as it can be, we need to take that deeper look to see if we have a potential derailer. Just like the strong oak tree, we stand up tall and do our thing until the storms come and that is when we might be exposed and come crashing down.