Find Your Strengths
Posted on | February 11, 2010 | No Comments
To paraphrase W. Somerset Maugham … “There are three rules for creating good leaders. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
With the opportunity to participate in a unique leadership development program this year, I’ve had leadership development on my mind a lot recently.
What qualities define a good leader? What is the relationship between leadership and management? Leading and following? In what ways will new technologies affect leadership and leaders? How can leadership qualities be cultivated?
In anticipation of this kind of personal and professional development, I came across Strengths Finder 2.0 - a combination of assessments, explanations, suggestions, and actions focused on helping you identify and utilize your Top 5 strengths.
The purchase of the book gives you an online access code, where you take the assessment and it identifies your strengths from the 34 most common talents that are prevalent amoung leaders (as developed from nearly 40 years of Gallup research on human strengths). Each strength is then described in detail, with suggestions for further action and tips about interacting with others who possess this strength. Each talent also has limitations that are clearly explained.
After doing the assessment and accessing the related material, I was suitably impressed. This is more than simple ‘personality testing’ – this is a system firmly based upon the philosophy of discovering your strengths and investing your time to develop those skills, rather than the conventional view of working on your weaknesses. Like leadership itself, there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ strengths.
Strengths Finder is about potential.
With increasing specialization and outsourcing happening in the world today, this type of tool can help you identify, develop, and apply what you are naturally good at – helping create stronger businesses, more adept professionals and better leaders … in all facets of society.
Overall, it’s helped me shift my thinking … from focusing on the areas in which I’m not gifted, to focusing on my areas of strength, giving me a new-found sense of self-confidence and understanding of how I can put my talents to use most effectively at work – and at home.
Oh, and in case you were curious, my Top 5 strengths were:
Achiever – Have a great deal of stamina and work hard. They take a great deal of satisfaction from being busy and productive.
Maximizer – Focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.
Futuristic - Inspired by the future and what it could be. They inspire others with their visions of the future.
Focus – Can take direction, follow through, and make the corrections necessary to stay on track. They prioritize, then act.
Significance - Driven by their talents, they seek acknowledgement and recognition from others to cultivate their reputation.
What are yours?
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P.S. - Strengths Finder 2.0 can be found at any major book retailer, as well as within my ‘Recommended Reads’ section … enjoy!
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Community development, growth and communication in the rural-urban fringe landscape.
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