What Is Your Superpower?
Loeb Leadership Consultant Spotlight: TERI COYNE
One of our superpowered consultants and facilitators, Teri Coyne, recently reflected on her experience after facilitating a management retreat. Below are thoughts from Teri.
If You Could Have Any Superpower, What Would It Be?
Imagine you are given the opportunity to be granted one superpower. What would you choose?
This is a question I recently asked a group of legal managers who were together for a day long retreat. I asked them to break into pairs and share their imagined superpower with a partner. As soon as the pairs started sharing, the energy in the room became brighter and lighter. The stresses and logistics of getting to an 8:00am all-day meeting slipped away. The endless brain chatter reminding us about what we need to do was replaced with imagining possibilities. There was laughter, intense engagement, and effortless active listening.
When we gathered again as a group to debrief, I asked each person to share what their partners superpower was, instead of sharing their own. When the group reacted positively to a response, the person sharing often responded proudly of their partner, “Isn’t that a great one?” Having the chance to share their partner’s power energized and excited them. Here were a few that were offered:
The power to heal
The power to provide to anyone in need – whatever their need
The power of truth – to hold a presence encourages everyone speak the truth
What Our Desired Power Tells Us About Ourselves
The one thing these superpowers (and all the others) had in common is that they reveal our values and our priorities. They get to that deep, centered part of our core that informs our behavior and our choices and influences how we are perceived. When we talk about someone as being authentic, isn’t this what we are connecting to?
It wasn’t surprising to anyone when a few moments later we shared some of our values and empathy, integrity, truth, and kindness showed up for so many.
As leaders, we spend a good amount of effort and thought on what we need to do better. Fast paced, highly productive work cultures insist on continuous improvement and efficiency. “How can we do better?” is an important and powerful question, but so is “What am I doing well? What are WE doing well? How can we do more of that?”
Amplify Your Strength!
Anytime I ask leaders and attorneys in our professional development programs and one-on-one coaching sessions what their challenges are around specific competencies, they can easily and readily identify at least one (but often multiple) areas of improvement. But when I ask, “What are your strengths? What do you do well?” They need time to think about it, and then are often shy about claiming their strengths.
Sharing our strengths makes us feel more vulnerable than focusing on our weaknesses. I want to change that. (Can you tell one of my strengths is Influencing?)
The research is clear – when you amplify your strengths and mentor your teams to do the same, you get higher productivity, more satisfaction, and well, let’s just say it – it feels better!
At Loeb Leadership, we are committed to developing extraordinary and inclusive leaders. In my work as a coach and facilitator at Loeb, I can tell you every person I have worked with is already extraordinary – our work is to help you harness and amplify your greatness.
So, tell me – what is your superpower?
By asking one simple question to her cohort, Teri was able to get an entire group thinking about their values and strengths, and helped them recognize what “superpowers” they might already have. Teri is an executive coach with Loeb Leadership and a lead facilitator for our management training workshops, including Managing for Impact. Teri is praised for her supportive and engaging approach, knowledge of her subject matter, and her delightful sense of humor.