Making the Most of Your Strengths

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Making the Most of Your Strengths
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Why Do Self-Assessment?

• Powerful personal development tool when used
  correctly
• Reflection and self-knowledge are cornerstones of
  leadership development
• Others are assessing you anyway!!

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Why Use This Particular Assessment?

• Assessment is scientifically sound
• Good ideas to accompany the assessment
• Focuses on the positive
• Is quick and inexpensive

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Underlying Assumptions

• Building from strengths is more efficient and
  effective than working on weaknesses
• Understanding your strengths can help you find
  good fits in your life
• Your strengths shed light on who you are
• Understanding your strengths can help you become
  a better leader

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A Crucial Difference

• Skills thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that you
  can learn and / or do
• Skills are fairly easily acquired
• Skills quickly degrade without frequent
  reinforcement
• Talents any recurring pattern of thought,
  feeling, or behavior that can be productively
  applied
• Talents are unique and enduring
• Talents are your T1 lines spontaneous,
  top-of-mind reactions to situations

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A Quick Note

• CONSISTENCY FAIRNESS in book
• INCLUDER INCLUSIVENESS in book

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Exercise Making Sense of Themes

• Write down your top five themes (or have your
  test output handy)
• ID one of the themes that resonated with you
• Put the theme into your own words by thinking of
  an example of when you used the theme

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Your Signature Themes

• StrengthsFinder Signature Themes these are your
  five most dominant themes of talent
• In these areas, you have the greatest potential
  for a strength.
• Focusing on these themes is an efficient way and
  effective to build from your strengths

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About Your Signature Themes

• Represent top five areas for potential strengths
• Rank ordered from 1st to 5th in dominance
• Signature themes show consistency in repeated
  tests and over time
• Absence of theme does not necessairly constitute
  weakness

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Exploring a Relevant Theme

• Example of signature themes
• Strategic
• Learner
• Futuristic
• Achiever
• Maximizer
• Need to clearly understand the theme
• Look for larger patterns

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Findings from Top Achievers

• Top achievers build their lives around talents
  develop talents into strengths
• Top achievers are highly aware of fit in their
  life (they use strengths in roles that best suit
  them)
• Top achievers figure out creative ways to use
  strengths when doing grunt work

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Using Your Themes

• Read applicable book sections (p.83-116)
• Highlight insightful and pertinent ideas
• Look for talents underlying themes
• Discern broad patterns in themes
• Encourage others to take the StrengthsFinder
• Check for congruency and fit

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Using Themes to Assess Fit

• What do your themes tell you about your choice of
  academic major?
• Choice of university?
• What about choice of profession?
• And your leadership style?

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Leadership Implications

• Understand what Signature Themes say about you
• Self-knowledge is cornerstone of effective
  leadership
• Actively reflect on themes and talents
• Use talents and strengths to enhance your
  leadership capacity

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Leadership Implications

• Understand what Signature Themes say about others
• People are unique
• Effective leadership requires individualization
• Use book p. 117-210 for insights on leading
  others according to themes

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Exercise Your Greatest Hits

• Think about your greatest successes and triumphs.
  Briefly write down the answers to the following
  three questions
• What has been your most successful experience in
  an employment, service, or volunteer work
  setting?
• What has been your most successful experience in
  an academic, learning, or athletic setting?
• What has been your greatest success in an
  interpersonal relationship, leadership role,
  club, team, or organization?

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Putting it all Together

• What are the patterns between your greatest
  successes and your themes?
• Do your themes shed light on fitor lack of
  fitin your life?
• How can your themes inform your development?

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StrengthsFinder Lessons

• Know your strengths and organize your life to
  best leverage them
• Remember that the list is only top 5
• Continually assess fit in your life
• People bring different strengths to the table