Leadership Based On Strengths By Tom Rath

Identifying and understanding your own personal strengths is key to being a successful leader. Knowing your strengths means you can focus your efforts to maximize results, in yourself and in others. Strengths Finder 2.0 is designed to uncover your strengths and utilize these strengths to your advantage (Rath, 2007). Identifying and applying these strengths to your leadership style, will enhance your effectiveness as a transformational leader.

Based on the Clifton Strengths Assessment my top five strengths are strategic, deliberative, learner, maximize and individualization. As an individual, I rarely look into my weakness. I believe that when your too focused on your weakness, you forget about your strengths. Everything the book said is true, and we need to take the time to look at our strengths and make it perfect. It is true that in this world or the school system, we are taught to look at our weakness and correct it so that we can become stronger in our life. This book brings out the truth that I longed to hear for a long time. Invariably, I hear my professor tell their students that for them success in life, they must practice and look at our weakness. This book proves it wrong because for us to become successful, we must stay to our strengths’ path.

Tom Rath’s “Strengths Finder 2.0” on-line assessment identified that my top five strengths are: Strategic, Focus, Futuristic, Significance, and Learner. I see the Strength Finder Assessment as a great opportunity to get to know my personal strengths and it motivates me to work and practice my talents rather than trying to fix my weaknesses. Looking only at my strengths is a new type of skills-building which allows me to stay focus on my talents.

(Focht, 2015). In a previous role I held, I had three direct reports. Each were at different

Gallup’s (2017) StrengthsQuest assessment lists my five greatest strengths as competition, achiever, learner, input, and strategic. After reviewing the detailed descriptions of these strengths, I am confident that I can successfully apply these skills to my job as an investigator and further develop my capacity in leadership. Before taking this survey, I was certain that focus would be among my five greatest strengths, but after considering the book’s description of the achiever theme, I am convinced of the accuracy of this evaluation. Outlined below is my interpretation of these talents, their intrinsic drawbacks, and several illustrations of how they have helped me achieve success. I have also included a few examples of how I can implement

In the nursing health care profession, there are different leadership styles in which can have an impact on the organization, staff, and even the outcome of the patient health. With the changes in the trends of the current health care system, nurses are being placed in a position to lead and take the necessary actions to reshape their organization. The leadership style of the nurse is influenced by their nursing experience, educational background and their personality. After this writer completed the strength finder assessment, the five themes identified as a part of the personality are: positivity, relator, discipline, woo and self-assurance After completing strength finder assessment, this writer was able to identify five

In order to develop strong leaders throughout the nursing industry, one must encompass various traits from all types of leadership theories. Of the many different theories, transformational leadership has a heavy impact in creating a strong and successful leader. Strengths Finder 2.0 guides individuals into focusing on developing themselves through their strengths instead of trying to fix their weaknesses. In doing so, individuals are able to develop natural talents in a way that creates a higher achieving workplace. This paper will explore the use of applying transformational leadership focused on developing strengths and how it can be applied to nursing as an industry, in personal practice,

It is suggested that as part of human nature, individuals naturally seek to find the negative in any situation (Walter, 2013). This underlying focus is present in nearly every aspect of day-to-day living including top stories on the news, performance on an exam, and even in professional lives when something doesn’t go perfectly according to plan (Walter, 2013). Furthermore, Walter suggests that it is also within human nature to want to fix things. When we couple the desire to fix and the inherent ability to identify the negative it is a dangerous combination especially when evaluating people as individuals (Walter, 2013). Strength based leadership is an approach that stops trying to fix employees, rather harness their individual passion or strengths in an attempt that can empower the individual and ultimately be successful and fulfilled on an individual and company level (Walter, 2013). This paper will explore how strength based leadership has impacted the nursing profession and ultimately is used in promoting better health outcomes.

Looking at the results from my Seven Habits profile, I generally score about the same across the board- other than one category. In the “Synergize” box I was very low. My leadership style is based on building relationships and caring for others’ time and work effort. I don’t often self-reflect on whether or not I am seeking out insights from others. I also scored the absolute lowest on being creative in searching for new and better ideas for solutions. I have never had the natural gift to think outside the box and find alternative solutions other than what is the obvious. That could be quite detrimental to a manager and company. I need to learn to synergize as a manager and find new solutions to old problems.

Now the first half of the book expresses the importance of identifying the skills necessary to being engaged in the workplace. The second half of the book goes over all of the individual strengths as outlined by the author. To go over all of them would likely expand this report much further than needed, so I'll address a few of the strengths that were pertinent to me personally.

In the same way the military evaluates and observes the solders’ individual strength and weakness in order to place subordinates in the field of their strength, organizations should look to do the same within their company to promote potential leaders. The doctrine that goes with building strength through leadership and according to the reading, it is suggested that “nurturing strengths as opposed to focusing exclusively on correction deficiencies” (Key-Roberts,

While I do consider myself a leader based on the trait leadership theory I do not believe I am a perfect example. There are many traits I lack or could benefit from improving. One of those traits is tact and diplomacy. While I am outgoing and sociable I have at times rubbed people the wrong way. I also noted I have always made friends easily but there has also never been a shortage of people that simply do not like me. Sometimes people don’t want to hear what I think is right. Sometimes I don’t necessarily say things in the most delicate way. I recognize that I am a polarizing figure in this regard and this is something that I definitely would benefit from correcting.

Strength-based organizations produce better leadership in their workforce because they focus on someone’s strengths rather than their weaknesses (Clemmer, 2015). It has been a norm in our culture to seek out people’s weaknesses and then implement an action plan to improve on them. But recent studies have shown this hurts motivation and takes away precious time from the organization (Clemmer, 2015). Being able to adapt and make the change from the old-school methodologies where the focus was on areas of improvement to areas of strength will generate much better leaders (Clemmer, 2015). There are several benefits a strength-based approach will bring to the organization. To reach that goal, understanding some of the foundational changes an

Over the years women in leadership has been skeptical to many; however, recently it has become more acceptable. Leaders like Angela Ahrendts show the world how to be an effective leader and be a woman. Ahrendts was ranked 49th in Forbes’ 2014 list of the most powerful women in the world and 9th most powerful woman in the U.K. She has proven her success, which is why Apple hired her to better their company with her innovative leadership style.

The best way for people to grow and develop is to identify how they most naturally think, feel, and behave, then build on those talents to create strengths, or the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance. Building employees' strengths is a far more effective approach to improving performance than trying to improve weaknesses. When employees know and use their strengths, they are more engaged, perform better, and are less likely to leave their company.