Most of us become experts in our weaknesses and spend time and energy fixing these flaws. We often ignore the importance of cultivating our strengths. In this post from our self-leadership series, we’re giving you the tools to know your strengths and release your full leadership potential.

Shift your focus from “What is wrong” to “What is strong”

Successful people spend most of their time focusing on their strengths while being aware of their weaknesses. They are no stronger than the average individual, in fact, but they have identified how to harness them to the fullest.

As British author, motivational speaker and business consultant, Marcus Buckingham put it: “Reducing your weaknesses is not the path to greatness. Improving your key strengths is your personal path to excellence”. What is important is to know and use your strengths while managing your weaknesses so they don’t interfere with your strengths. Don’t ignore your weaknesses. Manage them through self-awareness, intentional actions and engage with people.

What is a strength and why focusing on them?

According to Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton a true strength meets three conditions:

1. You are good or have the potential to be good at it.

2. You are boosted when you do it.

3. It benefits something greater than yourself.

Identifying your strengths, you’ll be able to improve your energy and effectiveness. You’ll connect to your full potential, increase your self-confidence, enhance your resilience and performance. That’s the starting point for a successful and happy life.

3 steps to live up to your strengths

Before making the most of your strengths, you’ll have to find them. Not all strengths are visible at first sight (hidden strengths). If you focus on seeking them through self-discovery exercises, assessment tools and feedback from others, they will emerge naturally.

Below you’ll find a list of exercises to discover your talents and strengths. Be brutally honest towards yourself when completing these exercises.

STEP I: COLLECT DATA

Tool 1: journaling

Studies have demonstrated that journaling is a great method for becoming more self-aware and reflective towards personal strengths. The more you know yourself, the easier it will be for you to identify your personal strengths.

Here are two ways to use journaling:

At the end of the day, reflect on the most memorable moments of your day. What happened? What have you achieved? What are you most proud of?
Write down detailed descriptions of your deepest thoughts and dreams.

Tool 2: Self-discovery questions

2.1. What am I good at?

75 percent of our strengths come from the inherent talent we are born with, and 25 percent come from our experiences. Take some time to reflect on your previous experiences, both private and professional ones, to identify what you are good at. Also take the time to reflect about times you screwed up or made mistakes.

Ask yourself questions like:

What am I good at? What do I enjoy doing?
What are the things I was great at as a child or a teenager?
What are my greatest strengths and capabilities?
What are my hidden skills or talents?
On which specific tasks have I received a particular recognition or reward?
What do my friends or colleagues find challenging that seems easy to me?
Where are they seeking my advice?
What are my first reactions? (building connection?, using humor?, finding solutions? etc.)
What is easy for me to learn?
What types of activities do I feel like I'm getting started quickly?
Which achievements am I proud of at work? (current or previous work situations)
What did other people have to do to assist me overtime?
Which projects and tasks seem to deplete my energy?
Is there anything I can't do?
What habit is affecting me ?
What are the strengths and areas for development that have been highlighted in previous appraisals?

2.2. What makes me tick?

Being good or talented at something doesn’t necessarily mean that you like doing them. Think about what you like and what you don't like. The purpose is to identify what you like to do and what you should stop doing because they make you feel frustrated and slow you down.

Ask yourself these questions:

What are my hobbies and why do I like to practice them?
What types of tasks do I like to do the most?
What do I want to do? What tasks have I been attracted to before?
What am I looking forward to doing?
What do I like to learn?
What specific activities give me the impression that time passes quickly when I practice them?
When do I feel boosted and motivated?
What makes me feel good/satisfied (e.g. order, chaos, innovation, helping others)?
When am I the happiest and the most fulfilled at work?
How would I fill my ideal (work) day?
What topics can I talk about endlessly?
If I were given the desire to do whatever I want for the rest of my (professional) life, what would I choose?
What do I do when I feel like the "real me"?
On which projects did I spend hours without getting tired?
What am I afraid to do?
What activities do I not do well?
What are the tasks that exhaust my energy?
What am I delaying or looking for excuses to avoid?

Tool 3: online assessments

To supplement your personal reflections, you can take an online assessment or complete a personality test. Below you’ll find 2 free online assessment tools.

VIA (Values in Action) survey

On the website of VIA character, you can take a survey that highlights your character strengths. Your character strengths are the qualities that come most naturally to you. Every individual possesses all 24 character strengths in different degrees, giving each person a unique character profile. (https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths)

Alternatively, you can take the Strengthsfinder2.0, which helps finding your talents. If you buy the book “StrengthsFinder2.0.” by Tom Rath or the book “Now, Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton, you will receive a code that will enable you to go online and take the StrengthsFinder Inventory.

High 5 Survey

The “High5” test is an online resource dedicated to helping people who wish to learn about their strengths and weaknesses in a professional context. On the website of “High5” you can take a free survey helping you to identify your top 5 strengths. (https://high5test.com)

Tool 4: Ask people to hold a mirror

Ask people you trust to share their opinions with you. This helps you to understand what others think of you so that you can find your strengths.

Follow these steps:

Think of people you know well in various situations (family, friends, colleagues, peers, bosses, etc.) who can give you different perspectives. This will allow you to assess your strengths at many levels and in many situations.
Ask them the following questions and mention that strengths can be based on skills or personality:
- What strengths do you feel I have?
- Which of them do you think I'm using to the fullest? (please give examples of concrete situations)
- Is there any strength I could harness more to make a more powerful contribution?
- In your opinion, are there any major weaknesses that could create a significant performance risk? (please give examples of specific situations). What could I do for them?
- Do you have any suggestions to make the most of my strengths?
- Are some forces excessively used (too much or in an inappropriate context to the extent that they have a negative impact? Do you have any suggestions on what I could do?)
Spot patterns: once you have received the feedback, look for common themes that appear in the multiple stories. Make a list of themes, key examples to support each of them and what they suggest about your strengths.

Note: To help people clarify their thinking, you can hand over a list with some generic strengths and weaknesses.

STEP II: REFLECT ON YOUR FINDINGS

If you now combine the outcomes of the strengths assessments with the insights provided by your own self-assessment and input from others, you’ll start to get a fairly good idea of your strengths and weaknesses.

You can summarize what you have found in different ways:

Making a SWOT analysis
Creating a chart of your strengths (see resources)
Write a self-portrait

Ask yourself the following self-reflection questions:

How do I feel about what I found?
What is similar and what is different?
What is most surprising?
What are the strengths others see in me that I did not identify as a strength?
Thinking about the qualities and weaknesses you have identified but which have turned out to be different, reflect if it is possible that you enjoy certain things or that you're motivated by certain things, but in actuality you can't do them well?
Look at the identified weaknesses and highlight what isn’t for you. An apparent "weakness" may merely be an indication that a particular activity just isn’t for you, that you are simply not interested and don’t have the desire to improve it. Be honest towards yourself.

STEP III: EXPRESS YOUR STRENGTHS

You have now identified your strengths and weaknesses. Some of your strengths represent your “signature strengths” which you should focus on primarily and cultivate on a regular basis. Other strengths need to be further developed to be used to their fullest potential. And some strengths won’t contribute to your success. When looking at your weaknesses, some interfere with your strengths and you will need to address them and improve them. Other weaknesses are irrelevant to your success. Since fixing your weaknesses will never lead to success, I won't address how to fix them. Be aware of your weaknesses to better use your strengths properly. Decide if you need or want to work on any of your weaknesses and define what you will need to do to change them (e.g. leverage a strength to support you in an area of weakness, partner with people who have a strength that are your weaknesses, if not necessary stop doing activities in your areas of weakness)

Now select the top 5 strengths that will make a difference to your success.

For each of these strengths, ask yourself:

How am I using my strength today?
Where and when do I use this strength?
In which areas could I use it better or more often?
How could I use, improve and nurture this strength more frequently?
How could I organize my day using my strengths?
Where could I use this strength to make a difference in my life?
What are other ways and new contexts in which I could use my strength? How could I use this strength into an opportunity?

Create an action plan and be committed to using your personal strengths in your daily life. Journaling and daily reflection can help you increase your awareness and appreciation for your strengths. At the end of your day, ask yourself:

How did I use some of my strengths today?
How did I feel when I was using my strengths?
Did I overuse some of my strengths and what was the impact?
Did I spend time in areas of weakness?
What will I do again or more? What will I start doing? What will I do less of or stop doing?
Which words of affirmation, in line with my strengths, will guide my day (e.g. I am curious”, “I am agile” etc.)

Enjoy the journey and turn up the volume of your strengths!

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Find out more on self-leadership, read my dedicated blog post.

Feel free to contact us for additional coaching support.

Further resources:

Recommended books:

“Go Put Your Strengths to Work” by Marcus Buckingham
“Now, discover your strengths” by Marcus Buckingham
“Strengthsfinder 2.0” by Tom Rath (with code for assessment included):
“The Positive Leader” by Jan Mühlfeit

Online assessments:

https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths
https://high5test.com

Tools

About the self-leadership series

This weekly series aims to share tools to help you grow your self-leadership and to connect to your three leadership intelligences: Head, Heart and Gut. When using these three intelligences, you increase your impact, relational skills, adaptability and resilience and can navigate the ever-changing environment with ease. So grab a notebook to make these practices powerful for you!