Reflections on Cliffton’s Strengths Finder Assessment
According to the Clifton strengths finders, my signature themes are wooed under the influencing domain, relator and adaptability under the relationship-building domain and strategic and context under the strategic thinking domain (Rath & Conchie, 2008). My strengths are in relationship building and strategic thinking while my weakness is in executing. I have been able to employ my strengths in enhancing the four basic themes of trust, compassion, stability and hope that all followers need (Rath & Conchie, 2008).
As a leader with strong relationship building skills, I am able to create teams that can work together successfully. Leaders with relationship building skills are able to create strong functional teams. They can bring different individuals together to create cohesive teams that are efficient and productive.
Being a relator, I find it easy to create and maintain close relationships with the people around me. I am motivated by the desire to bring my friends and colleagues together to complete a task or an activity. People often turn nominate me to lead their teams because they trust my assessment of the situation. Whenever there is a task, they request me to assess the responsibilities and make an objective evaluation. My priority in any relationship is to build trust from where I am able to create confidence and loyalty. I take pride in the fact that I can trust my partner and my family with my aspirations and plans. I am willing to share my background, desires, fears, and motivations to allow others to understand my viewpoint on various issues.
I have been able to build deep relationships despite knowing that deep relationships can lead to great disappointment. I show compassion by making time for my friends and giving resources such as advice, comfort, and money whenever needed. I provide stability in my teams and close relationships by setting clear, achievable expectations. In work related assignments, I ensure that my colleagues are properly trained so that they can achieve their aspirations. As a relator, I pick my teammates and friends carefully because I like to work with people who have clearly defined goals so that I can help them to realize these goals (Rath & Conchie, 2008). I also rely on both formal and informal structures to create reliable systems. I build hope by drawing my teams’ attention to their strengths and helping them to establish patterns of achievement and success. I often give career and life advice because my friends and family find it easy to approach me with such questions.
I have also been able to maintain strong relationships by being adaptable to change. Adaptability makes me comfortable with tackling change while at the same time being averse to schedules. I like finding my own rhythm and changing the pattern whenever it suits the task. I prefer setting personal goals and working towards fulfilling them because it allows me the flexibility to pursue them at my own pace. I like projects in which I am given the freedom to determine the time and the depth of the tasks. I am always looking for opportunities to improve existing plans; I prefer flexible plans that allow me to change and adjust along the way. In cases where I do not understand what is going on, I often find myself catching up in good time, particularly in my graduate class.
My ability to woo is supported by talkative nature. I open up easily and can speak confidently on a number of issues. I find it easy to strike conversations and my friends have told me repeatedly that I am easy to talk to because I put everybody at ease. I can make persuasive presentations in class and convince the majority of the class to support my proposition. I have given several motivational speeches to encourage children to pursue their dreams diligently. I also enjoy thought stimulating conversations with my friends and colleagues on various topics such as business, economics, philosophy, and politics. I prefer working with the objective rather than subjective people because objective people address issues while subjective people focus on personal stereotypes. It is also easy to convince objective people to take up a difficult or seemingly impossible project because they are analytical and pragmatic.
As a strategic thinker, I lead by using my knowledge, skills, and talent to identify problems at work and in my graduate studies. I enjoy drawing relationships between problems, people, and events and finding unique solutions to issues. I often find myself with several solutions to one problem because I am able to synthesize information and produce solutions to suit different scenarios. In some instances, I rely on discussions with my colleagues to come up with appropriate solutions. During group discussions, units in my graduate class, I consult widely with group members to understand the subject matter and produce the best group assignments. I tend to identify quick solutions to easy problems but take more time to find the best solutions for complex problems.
My ability to contextualize issues contributes immensely to my ability to think strategically. I have a good memory of past events and have utilized my knowledge to estimate the impact of similar events in the present. More often than not, history repeats itself, and the past is a mere reflection of the present. I enjoy reading about historical figures and events during my personal time. I have found that the past has many lessons that can be used to avoid similar mistakes in the present (Rath & Conchie, 2008).
My top five Clifton strengths did not include the executing domain. This means that my leadership strengths are not in executing plans. My strengths are in strategic thinking and relationship building. My weaknesses in implementation of plans can be compensated by my ability to create and contextualize excellent strategies and build cohesive teams. Other team members with executing leadership strength can take up this role (Rath & Conchie, 2008).
My strengths-based leadership report opened my eyes to my abilities as a leader. I was able to identify my strengths within the four available domains and identify my top five themes. Each of my five strength finder themes revealed interesting truths about my knowledge, skills, and talents as a leader (Rath & Conchie, 2008). I realized that some of the abilities I took for granted were actually the reason why I was best suited for certain roles. I learnt that talkative nature; love for history and concern for my friends and family are actually abilities that I can apply in my leadership roles. I will use the information from the leadership report to strengthen my natural abilities and enhance my leadership knowledge and skills. I will develop my leadership strengths to incorporate compassion, hope, stability, and trust to become an influential leader.
References
Rath, T., & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow. New York: Gallup Press. ISBN 9781595620255
