The first part in understanding how you lead is to know your strengths—the things you’re talented at and love to do. This is crucial because great management typically comes from playing to your strengths rather than from fixing your weaknesses. There are some useful frameworks for understanding your strengths, like StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath or StandOut by Marcus Buckingham. If you want to do a quick version, jot down the first thing that comes to mind when you ask yourself the following questions:

• How would the people who know and like me best (family, significant other, close friends) describe me in three words? MY ANSWER: thoughtful, enthusiastic, driven

• What three qualities do I possess that I am the proudest of? MY ANSWER: curious, reflective, optimistic

• When I look back on something I did that was successful, what personal traits do I give credit to? MY ANSWER: vision, determination, humility

• What are the top three most common pieces of positive feedback that I’ve received from my manager or peers? MY ANSWER: principled, fast learner, long-term thinker.

Like mine, your responses will likely cluster around a few themes. Here, you can see that my strengths are dreaming big, learning quickly, and remaining upbeat. Whatever yours are, remember them and hold them dear. You’ll be relying on them time and time again.

The second part of getting to an honest reckoning with yourself is knowing your weaknesses and triggers. Right beneath your list of strengths, answer the following:

• Whenever my worst inner critic sits on my shoulder, what does she yell at me for? MY ANSWER: getting distracted, worrying too much about what others think, not voicing what I believe

• If a magical fairy were to come and bestow on me three gifts I don’t yet have, what would they be? MY ANSWER: bottomless well of confidence, clarity of thought, incredible persuasion

• What are three things that trigger me? (A trigger is a situation that gets me more worked up than it should.) MY ANSWER: sense of injustice, the idea that someone else thinks I’m incompetent, people with inflated egos

• What are the top three most common pieces of feedback from my manager or peers on how I could be more effective? MY ANSWER: be more direct, take more risks, explain things simply

Again, you may see some themes emerging. The biggest barriers that get in my way are self-doubt, a tendency to complexify, and not being clear and direct enough.

“If you don’t learn the language of your loves, as so many of us do not, then you may well find yourself reaching toward broad symbols—such as race and religion—to define who you are. And when you do that, you may gain strength from what you share with folks of the same race and religion, but if you stop there, you may cut yourself off from the strength that comes from within. The strength of knowing who you uniquely are, where you find love in the world, and how to turn love into contribution.

This love-strength has more power than group-strength.

Love-strength is self-reliant. No one can threaten this strength, because it is always and only derived from who you are, and there is no one else like you. What someone else loves, and how they turn it into contribution, is interesting and cool and charming and useful, but it has no bearing on what you love. It cannot threaten you.

Do as my dear friend does, and ignore the list. Instead, focus on what at work you can control. Seventy-three percent of workers say they have the chance to modify their role to fit their strengths better. So start here. Once you’ve identified one or two red threads, figure out how you can use them to get your work done.

The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated,” wrote William James, the father of American psychology. It is impossible to be motivated and do great work if you don’t feel that somebody cares and appreciates what you do.

Studies have shown that for people to be happy and productive at work, they need to experience positive interactions (appreciation, praise) vs. negative (reprimands, criticism) with their manager/coach in a ratio of at least 3:1. (Watch out: For a marriage to work, you actually need a 5:1 ratio!!) So make it a simple habit to thank people each and every day —

and that includes using the word generously in emails to your team.

Finding employees’ strengths and focusing workers on those assets is the most powerful people-management tool we can suggest. And it goes hand in hand with dehassling a person’s job.