What's my single biggest weakness? - Leadership Questions #2

When you've established trust, accelerate your personal development with this weakness question

Question

What's my single biggest weakness?

Answers

Examples from my career

• When asking my team about this, I surprisingly didn’t see a clear pattern emerge. One person shared that I am prone to rambling, emphasizing that this can apply to my spoken communication, but rarely in writing. They described my writing as “pretty much always crisp”. This motivated me to dig deeper into effective communication tools like the Minto Pyramid or BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) and build a habit in my daily work.

• When pushing for feedback from a previous manager who resigned, they highlighted managing upwards as the “key to your growth at adidas”, but intriguingly, they didn’t mean with them. I’ve always believed that “challenging senior leadership” was one of my duties as a middle manager. My manager shared that I’m frequently too challenging, making other leaders feel I don’t value or respect them. This inspired me to share more appreciation and positive feedback, which had a noticeable impact on several relationships with senior leaders I worked with.

• When preparing for job interviews, this question comes up frequently. You can ask and answer it yourself to practice an effective answer. Ideally, you explain how you’ve experienced this weakness and what you’re doing to counteract it. In my case, I picked “rambling” and mentioned BLUF, timeboxing all agenda items for meetings I run, and an accountability buddy as effective countermeasures.

Examples from the community

Got thoughts or additions? Drop a comment or slide into my DMs - share openly or anonymously. Let's chat! ✌

Be mindful

• Asking this question without sufficient trust and time in your role will typically give “all good” or “can’t think of anything” responses. Nobody is perfect, so be patient and set a reminder to ask again in a couple of weeks. 📆

• Depending on the person’s background, relationship with you, and the company’s feedback culture (not everyone works at Netflix), it may take months or even years for them to truly talk about this openly. Some may never want to talk about your single biggest weakness.

• The answers may hurt or at least sting a little. Prepare mentally, thank the person for being open, and ask clarifying questions. Do not justify, defend, or even explain why you act a certain way - at least initially.