Introduction

I’ve already written about the benefits of a psychologically safe work environment on your team, and how to encourage a culture of feedback. Now let’s talk about how you can use the environment you’ve created to press the advantage and drive more growth for you and your team.

What is your super power?

In your next 1:1 meetings this can be a great discussion topic. You and your direct reports can provide feedback to each other on what you believe the other person’s super power is.

Don’t just spring this on someone, it’s best to introduce the topic at the end of a 1:1, and suggest it be a topic for the next 1:1. A good way to think about it would be, “If I was only known for 1 thing related to my role, what would it be?”

Remember that it shouldn’t be related to a hard skill. Hard skills are easy to develop. You just need to get more practice, and then dive deeper. If someone told me I was really good at spreadsheets, I would just make more spreadsheets, learn more functions, get a book, or take a class. The point of this exercise is to identify a character trait that works really well in your work environment. Maybe it’s that someone is always coming up with new product ideas, someone is really ambitious and always picking up new skills, someone is a great facilitator of complex conversations, something like that.

Once you have identified your super powers, create a list of pros and cons for each power. No trait is ever 100% good or bad. Try to think of situations where it works well, and situations where it could cause issues. For example, being a very democratic leader is great for collaboration, but if every decision needs to be by majority, you can get bogged down in decisions when it’s crunch time.

My super power

In a recent 1:1, I received the feedback that my super power is bringing everyone in with humility, admitting I don’t necessarily know the answer, and then inviting the group to solve the problem collaboratively.

The pros

• great for building alignment

The cons

• Lots of time spent getting people up to speed so they can debate/discuss

How do we build on our super powers?

There’s pros and cons, as I’ve said before, but I need to figure out how to hone this power into something even more effective. So knowing the pros and cons, I need to find a way to lean into the pros and avoid the cons.

For me, I think the solution is to define the scope and structure of a discussion before inviting everyone in to solve it. Especially as I aim to move to higher level leadership titles, I need to be able to introduce a topic with some context and direction to save the team time. That doesn’t mean I present the solution to the team and say “do it my way.”

I need to add more guardrails to a conversation and continue to gather feedback from my team on whether I am giving too much or too little structure. If I’m able to dial it in, then I’ll really be able to take advantage of my super power. The team will have the structure and context needed to hit the ground running with a new problem, while still having the autonomy to discover the best solution and take ownership of it.

Wrapping up

In a 1:1, bring up with your direct reports that you want to use the next 1:1 to discuss the things that set you apart from everyone else, those super powers that can be used to a serious advantage. In the next 1:1 identify them, list the pros and cons, and then take some time to figure out how to lean into the pros and mitigate the cons. Through this process, you can press the advantage on the things that make you a stand out employee, and level up your approach to work quickly.