Building and strengthening your own leadership and the leadership of others is not an easy task. It requires focus, intentionality, and most often a mindset shift.
The beginning of this mindset shift for me happened right after college. I was working for a serial entrepreneur who taught me about Don Clifton and the early days of positive psychology. He had the following research question after finding there were mountains of research studies about how to “fix” psychological challenges we all face in life.
What will happen when we think about what is right with people rather than fixating on what is wrong with them?
Don Clifton
This led to research on talents of high performers and successful leaders in various fields. The Gallup organization explored innate talents of humans which eventually led to the creation of the CliftonStrengths Assessment which used to be called StrengthsFinder.
The term strengths is slightly misleading and more of a marketing tool. The assessment identifies the talents you have that are innate to you. What you gravitate towards and naturally get energy from.
When we focus on those innate talents and practice them with intentionality, they can become our strengths and be a powerful asset to us in our leadership journey. Working to improve weakness can only get us so far but working on our innate talents to turn them into strengths has no limit to growth.
If you want to become a better leader or help others become better leaders, then focus on their strengths and there is no ceiling to where you can go.
If you’ve never taken the CliftonStrengths assessment go take it now and if you have already taken it review your results. I’m happy to coach you through your results (for free) if you are interested, just message me and we can get something set up.
