Do you know what your signature strength is – something that is unique to you and that you rely upon to get you out of trouble and make you succeed even when the odds are high?

It is an important question for an Indian leader to explore deeply, since the flip side of that signature strength is core incompetence (CI). Yes, you read it right – your core incompetence. Your success or failure to become great leaders depends upon your awareness of your core incompetence. Let me give you an example from sports.

You’ve probably heard that ten minutes before the end of the extra time in the 2006 soccer World Cup, French captain Zidane almost broke the Italian player Materazzi’s heart, quite literally, with a head butt on his chest. The act got Zidane kicked out of the world cup finals and it is probable that France lost to Italy because they were without their captain and one of the greatest players of the game.

What you probably did not know is that it was not the first time Zidane had misdirected his energy. He had stamped on Saudi Arabia’s captain Fuad Amin in the 1998 World Cup and was dismissed from that particular game. In 2000, he had head butted Jochen Kientz in the 27th minute. Kientz suffered a concussion and a fractured cheekbone and Zidane had received a five-match ban.

As an executive coach interested in exploring what drives people to success and failure, I have worked with and interviewed hundreds of ambitious people including business executives, sports legends and Nobel laureates. One key discovery I made repeatedly over the last fifteen years is that there is a common driver to the successes and failures of the people (I studied). I call this driver, ‘the signature strength’ and its downside, ‘core incompetence’.