Fear Your Strengths

Fixing Lopsidedness

As the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” That bit of wisdom captures what it takes to escape lopsidedness in both thought and action.

Given that lopsidedness is defined by overemphasizing one leadership approach and underemphasizing its complement, the remedy, from a strictly behavioral standpoint, is a single two-fisted action: place one hand on each dial and simultaneously turn one down and the other up. At the same time, from the mindset perspective, the challenge is to uncover the root of the polarization and reconcile it. You must cease to define one approach as your truth, ...