Superpowers in the Workplace: No Capes Required

My superpower is finding things. Despite my eyesight needing more help these days, if something can be found, I will find it. It’s not as impressive as being able to fly or shoot fireballs from my hands, but it has served me well throughout my career. In a work context, my superpower enables me to look at things from different angles and helps me find a solution. I think this is arguably more useful in my profession than being able to actually shoot fireballs from my hands.

We all have superpowers. However, we may not instantly recognise strengths, often because they come so easily to us and are almost done unconsciously. To complicate things more, humans are naturally wired to lean into identifying and correcting weaknesses (Miglianico et al. 2019). Think of all those hours you spent at High School, putting in the study to get your marks up in a subject you dreaded, instead of doing the fun stuff in a subject you naturally excelled at. How did that make you feel and how do you feel about those subjects now?

Good News! You’re not in High School any more Toto, and research shows that amplifying our strengths is easier than correcting deficits (Bakker & van Woerkom 2018). In even better news, using strengths in our workplace can increase optimism, energy, self-efficacy and self-esteem, and lower stress, depression and anxiety (Bakker & van Wingerden 2020). When people use their superpowers at work, they become more engaged and this in turn enhances their strengths more. (Bakker & van Woerkom 2018) Quite the positive cycle!

Organisations that focus on eliminating weaknesses instead of amplifying strengths could be fostering a demoralising and ineffective environment (Miglianico et al. 2019) and one that leads to employees wishing they could shoot fireballs out of their hands.

So, to recap: superpowers are good and have a positive effect on all those involved in their usage. However, we still need to consider the important pieces of the puzzle which are identifying, integrating, acting on, and evaluating these strengths (Miglianico et al. 2019).

Luckily, TeamLINQ are experts at this! We love getting into the nitty gritty of helping people find their superpowers and notice them in others. When an individual plays to their strengths and knows what their colleagues' superpowers are, beautiful things happen. They will be on fire, just not shooting any from their hands. Capes not required but certainly welcome.