October 7, 2025
by Stephen T. Messenger
We all have a superpower. It’s something we’re uniquely great at and do naturally. Others notice our skill and understand it’s a benefit to our leadership.
Once we identify it, it is our responsibility to leverage that superpower to obtain mission accomplishment and organizational improvement.
Think about your unique superpower. It’s often something that happens innately and without much training. It’s something you’re talented and passionate about. This skill is one that has served you well and you use it often.
None of us will excel at every key leadership attribute. This is about having one great trait that amplifies others. When we identify and leverage our superpower, we can use our signature strength for overall success.
The Brotherly Shove
If you follow football, you understand the Philadelphia Eagles’ superpower play. If it is third or fourth down and they have two yards or less to go, they pull out the Tush Push. In this play, the entire team stacks on the line for a quarterback sneak that isn’t very sneaky at all.
Two running backs stand behind the quarterback, and on the snap, the offensive line surges forward with the running backs pushing the quarterback across the line. They have run this play to near perfection, with a 91.3% success rate since 2022 and a 96.6% success rate on fourth and one in the same time period.
Oh yeah, it helps to have a quarterback like Jalen Hurts who can squat 600 pounds and drives the ball forward. The other team knows this is coming and can do nothing to stop it. They’ve tried different formations, jumping the line, yelling to get the offense to jump, calling on the league to stop it, and pleading with the refs to call offsides penalties. Yet the Eagles keep rolling along (minus their loss to the Broncos last week).
They know their strengths and uniquely use them to help win. Howie Roseman, General Manager for the Eagles, says: “Everything we’re doing is legal and it works, and just because people do something that’s really good, doesn’t mean it should be outlawed.”
He’s right. In fact, when we find something that we’re really good at, we should be doing it as much as possible.
Tush Pushes Throughout History
Just as the Eagles execute their play with precision and self-awareness, history’s greatest leaders succeeded by leaning into their defining strength.
George Washington’s superpower was moral authority. He had an unshakable integrity to do the right thing which led a fractured army to believe in the legitimacy of a new nation.
Theodore Roosevelt led with courageous energy. He demonstrated relentless drive from his background as an adventurer and used it to reform government and project national strength.
In business, Henry Ford leveraged his superpower of process innovation. He revolutionized industry through assembly lines and focused on efficiency to drive economic progress.
In the last example, Mother Teresa’s skill was compassionate service. She loved people and had a heart to sit with the poorest of the poor and model humble leadership to help others.
All four of these historical figures grew their superpowers from a young age. They didn’t consciously practice them but leveraged their natural talents and passions to inspire others. Whether it was morality, adventure, improvements, or care, these four leaders knew what their skill was and leveraged it appropriately.
Our Personal Brotherly Shove?
It’s often uncomfortable to name our own superpower. It can easily feel like we’re boasting or self-promoting. Moreover, once we tell others, there will be times when we’re not demonstrating it, and others will see. It can be scary to name it and claim it, but once we identify and use this skill, we can use it to benefit the team and have others hold us accountable.
The first step is to solicit others to help identify our gifts. A good way to do this is to ask those closest to us what positive adjectives describe us. When we put these words together, it starts to paint a picture of our strengths and talents as others see them. Next, find the words in that list that we appreciate about ourselves to understand our passions. These words that intersect between passion and talent are a good indicator of our superpowers.
Next, ask yourself a few simple questions. What activities and traits do you default to? When you were young, what activities did you do or attributes did you recognize that stood out? What have others in the past told you that you made look easy? Finally, what do personality tests or the DiSC tell you? If you haven’t taken these, consider looking into these tests.
Finally, reflect on what you excel at during work. Do you thrive in planning, interpersonal skills, teaching, administration, inventing new ideas, getting things done, or bringing others together, to name a few?
When you put these three things together—what others tell you, what you like to do personally, and where you thrive at work—you’ll get a pretty good idea of where your strengths are. Come up with a few superpower proposals and test this with people around you.
You’ll know you’ve found it when it feels like it fits you perfectly.
Make Our Tush Push Unstoppable
When we learn to drive our superpower forward, like the Eagles’ unstoppable push, there truly is no limit to how far we can move our teams. More importantly, we can leverage this skill to become the best version of ourselves.
By using our best qualities to augment our other attributes, we make everyone around us better. After all, that’s where we become the most valuable when we are using all our assets for the good of the team.
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