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Realising Your Strengths

By 18 November 2014 July 19th, 2021 No Comments

Whilst the idea of ‘playing to your strengths’ isn’t new, the emergence of Positive Psychology has added impetus to strengths-based approaches to achieve greater success in life.

Research suggests that leaders that understand and then utilise strengths as a method of individual employee development and complementary team-building, can reap significant returns in both productivity, and the engagement and psychological well-being of employees.

But – and here is the problem – we are not very good at assessing our true strengths. The reason is that we confuse them with learned behaviours that get (a certain level of) results. However, these learned behaviours are often depleting and/or stop us from realising our full potential.

The scientific measurement of strengths is rooted in the work of Donald Clifton at The Gallup Organisation and the development of Strengthsfinder. More recently, Peterson and Seligman introduced the VIA (Values in Action) Strengths Inventory, as a ‘definitive’ psychological classification of strengths.

Whilst VIA Strengths is more concerned with character strengths and virtues, the Strengthsfinder model is more talent/ability orientated. Both of these measurement tools provide a strengths ‘top 5’, and have been extremely successful in their own way.

realising-your-strengths

A more recent introduction is Realise2 from CAPP (Centre for Applied Positive Psychology). This provides a much more holistic assessment, incorporating weaknesses rather than ignoring them. Realise2 is also talent/ability based but builds energy into a four quadrant model (see above). So it not only assesses: Performance – how good you are at doing an activity? And Use – how often you do the activity? But also Energy – do we feel invigorated or drained when undertaking an activity or behaviour?

The strengths-based approach to personal and team development is grounded in neuroscience and recent discoveries about how the brain works. The key is rather than trying to correct weaknesses, it is much more effective to build on strengths and work in complementary teams of people that make your weaknesses irrelevant.