Strengths & Weaknesses: Definition, Meaning, and Examples

To better understand your areas of strength, start by making a list of your:

• Skills: These could be acquired from education and experience (e.g., computer skills, languages, degrees, certificates, and technical abilities).
• “Soft” skills: These are the skills that may not have bee taught but you developed none-the-less (e.g., communication skills and social skills, problem solving abilities, and strategic skills).
• Personal strengths: These are your unique qualities (e.g., reliable, flexible, kind, hard working, creative, punctual, and positive).

Each area of strength has a corresponding weakness if it is not developed. Next, make a list of weaknesses (or underdeveloped strengths) that would be helpful to achieve your goals. For example, maybe you’re a bad cook. If that has nothing to do with your goals, then you don’t need to list it as a weakness here.
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To better understand your weaknesses, start by making a list of:

• Weak skills that you need: Again, these could be acquired from education and experience.
• “Soft” skills you need: These skills were not developed naturally but you see how developing them could help you reach your goals or improve your well-being.
• Personal weaknesses: These are your unique challenges or the things you know you struggle with. For example, I know that I struggle with assertiveness and I have a hard time standing up for myself. These personal weaknesses are something I have to continually work on.

By working on our weaknesses, even a little bit, we can start to turn them into strengths.

Sometimes it can be hard to think of all the areas of strength we actually have. So here’s a giant list of strengths to help you identify personal strengths. Many of these strengths are especially desirable in the workplace:​

Although strengths and weaknesses are most frequently discussed in the context of professional profiles, careers, and job interviews, the underlying principles extend far beyond a candidate’s resume or an organization’s strategic plan. Focusing on Interpersonal Dynamics. Strengths and weaknesses are key factors in how individuals interact with others. Increasing self-awareness helps an individual become more aware of others and can boost empathy, ultimately improving relationships and creating mutual understanding. In the professional realm, one source notes that complementary partnerships offer a “powerful workaround” for weaknesses. This strategy involves joining forces with others who possess reciprocal natural abilities, allowing the team to achieve results they “couldn’t do separately”. This concept applies equally in non-work settings, where recognizing a partner’s or peer’s strengths can offset one’s own shortcomings, thereby strengthening the relationship.The Dynamic Nature of Growth. While many articles focus on showing improvement paths for weaknesses, the journey of self-improvement is ongoing. It is crucial to remember that personal traits are dynamic; as an individual progresses through life, new strengths are built, and weaknesses may transform into competencies. Therefore, individuals should periodically reevaluate their current strengths and weaknesses to ensure their focus remains relevant. Recognizing that development takes time and self-insight, it is also important to pause and celebrate small successes along the way.

If you need some more guidance to help you work with your areas of strength try these activities:
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Positive qualities activity
To remind yourself that you have value and worth, it’s important to remember your positive qualities. In this activity, you do this by exploring the positive aspects of your personality.

Using your strengths activity
What are you especially good at? It doesn’t have to be anything big. In this activity, you explore how to use your strengths.

​Best self activity
When we imagine things, our brains experience them as if they are real. In this activity, you imagine being your best self.

While identifying personal and professional traits is foundational, the most advanced use of strengths and weaknesses involves actively integrating them into strategic planning, both for personal development and organizational success. This requires moving beyond simple self-listing and adopting strategic frameworks.Managing Weaknesses Through Strategy
The traditional view suggests that weaknesses can be “turned into strengths”. However, research offers a counter perspective, noting that weaknesses will “never turn into strengths”. Instead of spending excessive energy attempting to convert a fundamental lack of talent, success is achieved by managing that weakness.Two effective strategies for managing weaknesses are:
1. Applying Existing Strengths: Individuals should emphasize how their inherent strengths help them overcome or navigate their weaknesses. For example, a person who is naturally shy about public speaking might utilize their inquisitive trait to approach social settings as if they were a “focus group,” preparing questions in advance and making the event less intimidating.
2. Complementary Partnerships: A powerful workaround for bottom themes (weaknesses) is to seek out complementary partnerships. This involves joining forces with colleagues who possess the reciprocal natural abilities necessary for the task, ensuring that the team achieves results they “couldn’t do separately”.Organizational Alignment and the TOWS Matrix
In the organizational context, strengths and weaknesses are categorized as internal factors (resources, experience, activities, reputation). To achieve strategic goals, these internal traits must be assessed alongside external factors: Opportunities and Threats.The SWOT analysis provides the basic framework for this assessment, helping groups and organizations determine where change is possible and revealing priorities. For more detailed planning, the TOWS Matrix goes further, integrating the four factors to develop proactive strategies:• Opportunity-Strength (OS) Strategies: Use existing strengths to take advantage of external opportunities.
• Threat-Strength (TS) Strategies: Use existing strengths to avoid external threats.
• Opportunity-Weakness (OW) Strategies: Overcome weaknesses by taking advantage of opportunities.
• Threat-Weakness (TW) Strategies: Minimize weaknesses and avoid threats.

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When conducting this high-level analysis, organizations must ensure they are not too modest when listing strengths and must incorporate the perspective of outsiders (including customers or those served) when identifying both strengths and weaknesses, as outsiders may perceive assets or problems that the group overlooks.

Sometimes it can be hard to look at ourselves honestly and name our areas of strength and weakness. So if you’re having trouble, consider asking someone to help you. I tried asking friends about my strengths with the AtMyBest tool and enjoyed getting to see the results. But you can also just send a quick email or text asking people to help you identify your key strengths. This can often help you identify hidden strengths and talents—things that you are so good at you don’t even consider them strengths.

First, try to identify patterns or themes among your areas of strength. This can help you zoom in on what you’re really good at.

Second, create a self-portrait, vision board, or narrative that helps you think about your strengths in context. For example, how do these strengths relate to each other? How did they develop? What is it about you and your values that led these things to become strengths?

Third, think about how you would re-design your job (or life) to focus on what you’re good at. For example, as I was writing this article, I thought a bit about my strengths to innovate and learn new things. Perhaps I should consider innovating some new aspect to this website…

What about you? How might you change your job (or life) to focus more on your strengths?

You may or may not be able to immediately change your job or life to focus more on your strengths. But you can take small actions to start using your strengths more. For example, maybe you’re a natural coach. You could start taking classes or working on getting your life coaching certification. Or if you’re creative or hard-working, maybe you want to start a side hustle while still keeping your day job. Or maybe you’re a brilliant cook and you want to start having more people over for dinner to enjoy your meals. Whatever it is, try to take some action that helps you capitalize on your strengths to manifest what you want.

​​Want to learn more about strengths? Check out these articles: