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    How can I reflect on my own strengths and weaknesses as a leader?

    Being able to reflect on your own strengths and weaknesses is a key part of being a good leader, and essential to continuing your development. However, making the time, or even knowing where to start when it comes to reflecting on areas you could improve upon, can be difficult. Luckily, plenty of leaders have struggled with a similar situation, and their advice and guidance makes an excellent starting point for your own self-reflection.

    Ways to help you deal with it:

    Action plan

    Assessing your own strengths and weaknesses

    Effort : Medium
    Impact : High
    Knowing your strengths and weaknesses creates an opportunity for you – and your business – to grow. Our five-point plan will get you started.

    ACTION PLANS are a structured list of steps designed to help you approach tackling a particular business challenge.

    • We explain why each step is important
    • Customise by setting your own completion dates and assign tasks
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available

    Action plan

    Understanding where you add the most value as a leader

    Effort : High
    Impact : High
    Our five-point action plan will help you identify where you add value, so that you can be more effective in your role.

    Action plan

    Creating a roadmap to evolve as a leader

    Effort : Medium
    Impact : High
    Being proactive about the steps you need to take to develop as a leader means you can support your company’s growth. Follow our five-step plan to create a roadmap for your development.

    Action plan

    Create an environment to improve leadership

    Effort : High
    Impact : Medium
    Recognising that there’s always room for you to develop is the first step to improving as a leader; the next step is to create the right environment.

    Action plan

    Encouraging employees to provide feedback

    Effort : High
    Impact : High
    Getting honest feedback from employees is important if you want to develop as a leader and run your business or department effectively.

    Action plan

    Applying external learnings to your business

    Effort : Medium
    Impact : Medium
    It’s vital to scrutinise the advice you receive and decide what’s suitable before you apply external learnings to your business.

    Guide

    An introduction to evaluating your strengths and weaknesses as a leader

    For a lot of business owners and leaders, reflecting on their strengths and weaknesses does not come naturally or easily.

    GUIDES break a challenge down, providing important context and real-world experiences.

    • Based on SME experiences, not corporate jargon
    • Filled with real-world stories
    • Achievable steps every business can take

    Other support that's available

    Overcoming leadership weaknesses

    Overcoming leadership weaknesses

    It’s not a weakness to admit that you need to work on your leadership style – in fact, it’s a strength. Indeed takes you through some of the most common weaknesses and how to improve.

    Discover your potential

    Discover your potential

    This self-assessment from the Harvard Business School to help you understand your leadership style and how you can improve.

    How other businesses have tackled something similar

    Alison King, Bespoke HR

    Real business story

    Stepping back from running your business frees you up to improve it

    Great people and good processes allowed Bespoke HR MD Alison King to step back from running the business and be more strategic..
    Emma Heathcote-James, Little Soap Company

    Real business story

    How one accidental business leader learnt to successfully guide her company

    When Little Soap Company became a high street brand, CEO Emma Heathcote-Jones became an accidental business leader and had to learn to lead fast..
    Udhi Silva - Snaffling Pig

    Real business story

    Staff perform better when they’re engaged with your company’s vision and values

    Engaging staff with the company vision and values has driven significant improvements for both Snaffling Pig and Sellick Partnership..

    The questions lots of businesses are trying to answer

    What issue is keeping you awake at night? A bit of targeted support is often all you need to overcome those challenges.

    Select a topic

    Digital

    How can I improve the digital presence my business has? How should I go about collecting data to improve my business? How should I use the data I have to improve decision making? How can I streamline and automate some of our business processes? How do I work out the best digital sales channels to use? How do I assess and choose the right technology to improve business operations? How do I effectively seek external digital support? How can I understand what digital tools or support my business needs? How do I know if my technology is robust enough for growth? How should I best budget and plan for new technology investments?

    Leadership & Strategy

    How do I learn to become a better leader? How do I improve the communication in my business? How do I get staff interested in our vision and values? How can I reflect on my own strengths and weaknesses as a leader? How do I give my team autonomy and get better at delegating? As a leader, how do I learn to trust others within my organisation? How do I apply learnings from other businesses to my own company? How should my role as a business leader evolve with the company’s growth? How can I balance short-term needs with long-term targets? How do I get better at noticing and reacting to warning signs?

    People & Team

    How can I improve my hiring and onboarding practices? How can I develop the skillsets of my workforce? How can I develop career paths for my staff? How can I run a better appraisals process? How should I performance manage my staff? How do I deal with a challenging member of staff? How can I increase staff engagement and motivation? How can I keep my best members of staff? How do I manage an effective remote workforce? How can I reduce employee turnover?

    Planning

    How do I better inform my business plans? How do I know when to scale up my business? How can I define and communicate my vision for success? How do I ensure my business can navigate a dip in trading? How do I know when to invest in my business? How can I get better at looking internally at my business? How can I get staff interested in the financial situation? How can I make my business more resilient to change? How can I balance ambition with setting realistic goals? How can I work out what required skillsets are missing in the business?

    Sales & Growth

    How can we develop new products and services? How do I develop a clear unique selling point? How can we better serve our most loyal customers? How do I financially plan for new opportunities? How do I build a network to support my business? How can I get a better return on investment from my marketing? How can I identify new customers to target? How do I create targets and KPIs for my staff? How do I make sure my team and processes are ready for growth? How do I benchmark my business against competitors?
    All