How Do I Discover My Leadership Superpowers?

A great team starts with an excellent leader.

But what does it mean to be an excellent leader? At Leadology, we believe that your strengths are your pathway to excellence and that we each owe it to ourselves to discover our talents, nurture them, and spend a lifetime deepening them. 

We’re excited to share a quick story about one of Leadology’s former clients and the power of strengths-based development. 

FROM NEARLY FIRED TO GIRL ON FIRE 

For the sake of this story we’ll call her Kate. 

Earlier this year, Kate was a passionate, driven sales leader with a “get sh*t done” mentality. Unfortunately for Kate, this manifested in an inherent desire to win at any cost–a professional method that stunted the development of her team through personal overworking and lack of collaborative communication.

A common way that this desire to win exposed itself was through Kate’s team members. Whenever a team member came to Kate for help or advice on a project, Kate took it upon herself to handle the issues and troubleshoot the project herself–adding more to her workload. 

In Kate’s mind, absorbing the work herself and addressing the issues firsthand was quicker than teaching her team how to properly handle the problems themselves. In her mind, working harder would result in more sales and more wins for Kate. However, in actuality, Kate was taking away work from her team. By taking on a project without educating her team on how to handle it, she was directly affecting the professional development that a growing workflow delivers to her team. 

Kate’s team members weren’t learning on their own. Because of this, a dependency started to grow.

Eventually, Kate  received some feedback from her team that shocked Kate to her core. “Your team says you can be aggressive and condescending,” her manager told her. 

Stop for a second and think how that piece of feedback would feel for you. Perhaps you would feel like you need to shrink down? Back off? Even start looking for a new job? Suddenly the quality that had always gotten Kate so far in her professional life became the exact behavior that could hold her back. 

But Kate decided to take action. To drastically shift how she relates to herself–and her career through strengths-based coaching. 

The result? Instead of trying to change her personality, Kate learned that her intensity wasn’t necessarily a setback–but a power that she had to learn how to channel into team productivity. In order to better name her individual behaviors, Kate took the CliftonStrengths assessment which allowed us to create a professional development roadmap that led to her revelation. “Aggressive and condescending” wasn’t a bad thing – it was simply a result of overusing her strengths of competition and command, which although they made her incredibly decisive and driven to win needed to be adapted when going from an individual contributor to managing a team.

After learning more about the strengths of “competition” and “command,” Kate was able to empower her team with the same energy and fire that drove her to win at all costs. Instead of solving problems, Kate helped her team get curious about the problem by asking questions to help them consider the issue differently which allowed her team to find solutions to their questions. Instead of harshly critiquing, Kate channels feedback into identifying the strengths of her team members, and how they can best serve their common goals. The desire to win doesn’t go away, but Kate is ready for it now. When she gets fired up, Kate creates friendly competition within her team with fun, healthy contests that drive motivation and result in boosted morale–and sales.

This is an example of Strengths-Based Development. 

Although Kate’s story was just one of many, it echoes the basic themes of strength-based development and how it can improve communication within a team. Think about it: From nearly fired to on fire...now that’s the power of discovering your strengths. 

How can strengths-based development help you reach your personal best? We’re so glad you asked! 

DISCOVERING YOUR STRENGTHS

Where does strengths-based development come from?
A strengths-based approach pulls from a variety of best practices in leadership training, drawing on the fundamentals of positive psychology and authentic leadership, which advocate the notion that to help workers succeed and thrive, leaders need to help them understand and leverage their skills and capabilities. In other words, organizations should focus on what's strong rather than what's wrong. 

Contrary to popular belief, a strength is not merely something you are good at. In fact, it might be something you aren’t good at yet. It might be just a predilection, something you find so intrinsically satisfying that you look forward to doing it again and again and getting better at it over time.

So how do I go about discovering my strengths?
The easiest way to identify your unique strengths is through an accessible, online test: The CliftonStrengths Assessment (formerly called the Clifton StrengthsFinder), which measures your talent DNA through 34 CliftonStrengths-specific themes and delivers personalized results that showcase your specific style of learning, communicating, thinking, leading and more. With a 1 in 33 million chance of finding someone with your unique style of working, this assessment is truly focused on your personal improvement–for your team and yourself.

How will strengths make me a stronger leader? 

The power of self-awareness for an excellent leader cannot be underestimated. The more aware you are of when you thrive as well as how you uniquely process the world, the easier it will be for you to identify ways to elevate your strengths and the strengths that best serve the common purpose of your team and company. When it comes to working with a team, being able to emphasize what makes us all different, and empowering your team to harness the abilities they already possess gets them to success faster. By focusing on your strengths, you can not only improve employee morale, but build a profitable way to move forward as a collective.

READY TO ACTIVATE YOUR STRENGTHS?

If you’re interested in learning more about discovering your strengths, including the chance to test out your unique superpowers within a supportive group coaching environment, Leadology's Influential Communication Program for Managers was created to support you. Schedule a free strategy call with us to assess you and your team's unique needs and whether Activate is right for you!

— Team Leadology