My Strengths & Weaknesses

My Strength and Weakness

Everyone is different in many ways. There are differences in gender, nationality, religious activities and there are differences in strengths and weaknesses. Those strengths and weaknesses are looked at in Corporate America and they assist the higher management in making decisions for the roles we play on each team. I will be discussing my strengths’ and weaknesses.

Over the years, I have learned how to react and respond in different ways and it all depends on what is happening in my surroundings. I owe a lot of this to my 11 years of military service. The military trains you in a way that once you are done with their training; you will walk, talk and act as a soldier is supposed to act. There are times when the soldier forgets his surroundings; causing the soldier to forget and stop acting the way they were trained.

Two of my biggest strengths are discipline and leadership. This was started in my household where my parents were the disciplinarians of the home front. My parents taught me that it is important to be respectful and always use common courtesies and if a rule or guideline was set; I would need to follow it exactly as it was written so there will be no room for error. Once I joined the Army; discipline and leadership are key factors in the Army’s success. For 12 weeks I was fed everything from Drill and Ceremony, hand to hand combat, how to fire an M16A2 rifle to how to trust your squad; which is a team in today’s workforce. In the Army, you have a 10-12 soldier team which include a squad leader; who in business would be the manager, the assistant squad leader who would be the supervisor and then you would have your lower enlisted soldiers who would be the workforce. As you move up in rank; the Army sends you to numerous leadership schools to assist you with your career progression and how to handle different situations. Many companies ask if you have served in the Armed Forces for this reason.

Trust is another major strength that I have. This was also developed at a young age and has grown over the years. The Army is very critical regarding trust because when you go into a combat situation; not only are you responsible for your survival; you are responsible for the survival of your entire unit; weather it is a squad, a platoon or a company. The lower enlisted soldier trust you in the decisions that you make to get the squad through a specific situation. In my current role for Bank of America; I am responsible for monitoring associates calls and provide feedback to the behaviors heard throughout the call. Some of the key behaviors that are looked start with the education that was established at home when we were children which are the common courtesies. I provide the feedback to the associate however; there are behaviors that are not tolerated and this is where my trust comes into play. If there is a concern regarding a call; I forward the call to the management team and if the behavior is severe enough; the associate may be placed on a warning or terminated. The associates feel as they can trust me because I have not steered them in the wrong direction.

Flexibility is a big strength that I carry at all times. This comes with the military background once again. The Army always had a saying; “Hurry up and wait”. In the military, we would be called in at 3 am for a battle exercise and the unit had to be 90% strength within the 1st hour of the recall. I have learned after many years of hurrying up and waiting that I need to be flexible at all times. Within the business, I have been flexible for many things. I am currently a team leader/ supervisor and in addition to monitoring calls and providing feedback to the associates and managers, I also get on the phones to take customer service calls when the wait time exceeds 45 seconds. If there is a need in the associate assistance line I also assist them with their calls. This shows that leadership team that I am not scared to get on the phone and interact with our customers. This enables me to stay proficient on the systems and motivates the team.

Procrastination and being laid back are two of my biggest weaknesses. The behavior has minimized since assuming the leadership role