“In her book Hesselbein on Leadership, Frances Hesselbein, the chairman of the board of governors of the Leader to Leader Institute founded by Peter F. Drucker writes, “Peter Drucker reminds us that organizations exist to make people’s strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant. And this is the work of effective leaders.”
John C. Maxwell, Leadership Gold, p. 62
In the quote above, Hesselbein, who is quoting Drucker, is quoted by Maxwell and now I’m quoting him quoting her! Sorry about the confusion! Take a look at the bold quote above:
“Organizations exist to make people’s strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant.”
One of the most significant organizations, of course, is the family. I wonder how many of our families are majoring on the strengths and ignoring the weaknesses? When couples come to see me they often are clamoring to tell me the awful things their partner has done. When I ask the strengths of their partner, I often get silence! OUCH! Do we learn by people criticizing us or learn by people building us up? Why are we so ready to remember the hurt and the shortcomings and so lax in looking at what is going right?
Does your spouse think you are proud of her or does she think you scorn her? Does your husband think you respect him or does his self-image suffer at your words? What have you done lately to let your partner know you believe in him? What about your kids? Do you constantly remind them of their shortcomings or encourage them in their gifts and abilities?
For example, here’s a lady who is too often reminding her husband that he never talks to her: “How come you never talk to me? Don’t you love me? You’re just so quiet. It feels to me like you are being rude and don’t want anything to do with me. You’re just so into yourself. I can’t believe how selfish you are. I need a husband who will talk to me. You make me so lonely.” Replace the word “talk” with “sex” above and you have a common complaint of husbands. Hey, you aren’t going to get your husband to talk to you or your wife to be sexual with you by berating them, putting them down and telling them how much they’ve disappointed you.
Let’s just flush that spirit down the toilet. A better approach would be to build up your husband so that he’s encouraged when he’s around you. He’ll talk to you if he thinks you believe in him. She’ll warm up to you if she thinks you are her biggest fan. But you say: my spouse is negative, too? So? Take the leadership in this. Set the example. It has to start somewhere. Somebody in this family needs to start sowing positive seeds. It may as well start with you!
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