In my lifetime, I’ve thought about what I believed to be my most obvious personality traits, as I’m sure many others have with theirs, and I’ve considered how they affect my daily life and choices. Never, however, have I probed so deeply into the attributes that make up my most innate strengths like I have with CStoreConnections’ (formerly NAG) new Leadership Discovery Program (LDP).
For the first time this year, CStoreConnections invited guests to sign up for the LDP and take Gallup’s CliftonStrengths34 diagnostic, and during CStoreConnections’ annual conference, these guests partook in a session designed to help them learn about their test results and how to use them.
Understanding My Strengths
I took the test that determined my results prior to the conference. Individually, the other participants and myself were given two scenarios per question, and we had to choose on a scale which scenario described us best.
The point of each question was to instinctively choose where we fell on the scale, as we were only given a small amount of time to answer. That being said, I found myself struggling to choose one option over another for many of the questions, as I sometimes felt drawn to both options. I even timed out of the questions a few times trying to make a decision (which, as I’ve learned, lines up with my results).
As I discovered during our in-person session, however, I was not the only one to have a hard time deciding between certain scenarios. But where we landed on the scale tilted each of us toward certain strengths.
CliftonStrengths offers 34 strengths that fall into one of four themes: strategic thinking, relationship building, executing and influencing. My results showed that my top five strengths fall into the strategic thinking and relationship building categories.
During the in-person session, we were given a variety of tools to help us better understand our strengths, including a workbook containing activities giving us different lenses through which to view our strengths, a deck of cards with shortened descriptions of each strength and a printed copy of our results that further detailed each strength as it pertains to us.
An important discovery made was that even though we may have shared top strengths with others, our personalized strengths insights were designed specifically for us.
For example, I shared “Developer” as a top five strength with someone else at my table, but we received different insights about the strength based on how we answered questions in the initial assessment.
The discovery was fascinating, because it showed how truly different we all are in our approaches to the same situations, and even if we share similar qualities, the way we use them to inform our choices and reactions varies.
A number of activities were held throughout our time together to make us think about what our strengths mean for us in our work and home lives, how we can engage them for practical applications and how they might manifest when working with others.
Most importantly, we were given opportunities to think about how to improve our strengths. I learned that focusing on our top strengths — our most natural abilities — will yield much greater results than trying to develop our weaker skills.
Applying My Strengths
I’m at a point in my life where understanding where I excel is imperative, and having insight into why I arrive at certain conclusions or find a particular solution will be helpful in navigating future situations.
The “why” is more important for knowing myself and others than I originally would have believed. At the session, two participants commented about how they came to the same conclusion in certain situations, but they didn’t share the same top strengths.
However, they each had a top strength that provided them with specific thought processes that eventually took them in the same direction, even if the motivation was different.
And it’s understanding my motivations that I think will be highly useful for me in the future. Deepening this understanding can only help me make the most of my innate strengths, working on them to better benefit myself and those I’m around.
My top five strengths are:
- Adaptability
- Intellection
- Futuristic
- Input
- Developer
Now that I have a better grasp of my more natural assets and how they guide my thinking, I can better apply them to both my work and home life. I can actively determine how I will respond to something based on which strength I believe best applies to the situation.
For example, “Adaptability” allows me to flexible and adjust to changing situations, which I can continue to improve upon and use to jump onto any projects that need assistance. Or, I can lean on “Input” to be open to the ideas and opinions of a range of people, which inform my own knowledge and appreciation of important topics.
However I develop my strengths, I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to take the CliftonStrengths assessment, and not just receive my results, but attend an in-depth session that gave me clarity and the confidence to pinpoint and use my strengths in a way that I could not have received on my own.
Additionally, having the opportunity to learn alongside others as they came to their own conclusions about their strengths helped me get to know them on a more personal level and gave me further insight into how I can view my own abilities.
I plan to continue reviewing my results in the coming weeks; continuously touching base is the only way to develop into a better leader and a more efficient team member.