Strengths-based Leadership

Webinar presented on 1/15/15

Adam Maurer, Chief Talent Officer

Participants will be able to:

● Discuss the values of a strengths-based

approach to leadership

● Identify ways to assess strengths

● Encourage direct reports to leverage

strengths to achieve excellence

Agenda

“I’ve never met an effective leader who

wasn’t aware of his talents and

working to sharpen them”.

- Wesley Clark

Former NATO

Supreme Commander

Welcome

“Bad managers play checkers. Good managers play

chess. The good manager knows that not all employees

work the same way. They know if they are to achieve

success, they must put their employees in a position

where they will be able to use their strengths.”

- Marcus Buckingham

Welcome

Strengths = talents + knowledge + skills

Strengths are consistent near perfect performance

that give us energy

What are Strengths?

● Focusing on our strengths give us a much

bigger lift on performance than focusing on

weaknesses

● Focusing on weaknesses have negative

consequences on self-confidence,

engagement and trust

Why Strengths?

● The Nebraska School Study Council in 1950

commissioned a study of 6000 tenth graders to test

how best to teach speed reading.

● Result = no technique was better than another.

● Unexpected result: Students with a talent for reading

got more benefit from the program.

● On average everyone’s reading speed increased, but

those students with a strength in reading got 4 times

better.

The Lift of Strengths

Glock 1950

● Focusing on strengths does not mean ignoring

weaknesses or mistakes

○ Example: Rude customer service representative

causing sales to decline

● Make talents our focus, weakness are understood and

managed

● Focusing on strengths takes us beyond the correction

(-10 to -4) to cultivate excellence (+10 to +40)

Focusing on Strengths

1980’s study of pubs in the UK

● Managers asked do we refurbish the poor performing

pubs or the best ones?

● 8 high value and 8 low value pubs refurbished

● 8 high value pubs were 7 times more profitable with

the same amount of investment as the low value pubs

● The talents of the individuals working in the high value

pubs drove the increase in profitability

Strengths in Pubs

● Beginning in 2000, Martin

Seligman challenged the

psychology community to

begin focusing on what

yielded happiness,

productivity and well-being

instead of

psychopathology.

Positive Psychology

Happiness =

Set Point + Circumstances + Variables

• Set Point

■ Hedonic Treadmill

■ 50% of set range is from parents

• Circumstances

■ Only our social network and meaning

significantly impact happiness

• Variables

■ 40% of happiness from these variables

■ Character Strengths

Formula for Happiness

● Strengths + the right tasks = FLOW

● The best managers match the strengths of

their direct reports with tasks that require

those strengths

Flow

● Study of 1,885 work units with 308,798

employees in 51 companies found:

○ Work units scoring above the median on

a single question had 1.4 times better

customer loyalty and employee

engagement

○ Single question: I have the opportunity to

do what I do best each day.

Benefits of Flow

Job Crafting

Tasks

Strengths

Excerpted from Job Crafting Exercise workbook published by the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship

(reference on last slide and copies available in the HR Office.

● Assessments

○ Strengths Finder 2.0

○ Values In Action (VIA)

● One-on-ones and QPC

○ where do we achieve near perfect

performance with consistency

○ what activities give us a energy lift

○ what brings us meaning

How to Identify Strengths

Gallup’s Assessment

● 34 Character Strengths

● Business related language

● Online assessment with code in book

Positive Psychology’s

Assessment

● 26 Character Strengths

● More universal to life and work

● Peer reviewed and cross cultural

● Basic version online is free

• Genuine conversations are a great way to get

to understand strengths

• Discuss key successes with reference to the

Citizen Schools competency model

• Is their consistent near perfect performance in

any one of the competency areas?

• Dive in and think about the pattern and how

the competencies relate to each other

• Look for smiles, emotion, confidence and

passion they are clues you are on the right

track.

QPC’s and One-on-Ones

• Helping employees to be aware of their

strengths and to begin to reflect on how to use

them is the key to getting the performance lift

from strengths.

• They can appeal to their strengths when

needed to overcome challenges or achieve best

performance

• Think of a composer choosing from all of the

available notes to create a beautiful song

Mindfulness

Strengths = talents + knowledge + skills

• Talents are our natural abilities, but knowledge

can be learned and skills come from

practice/experience

• We can help staff develop strengths by gaining

more knowledge and experiences in areas that

complement their talents

Strength Development

Strengths = talents + knowledge + skills

• Conferences

• Books read independently or together and

discussed

• Leverage Professional Development Funds

• Trainings available online

Look for a specific link that is going to complement

your talents and experience

Developing Knowledge

Strengths = talents + knowledge + skills

• Stretch assignments at work

• Volunteering in the community

• Shadowing

• Trying new things/ adventures

Leveraging your strengths to overcome challenges

will give you all kinds of experiences

Developing Experience

• When employees are not giving you the results

you want, explore their strengths to get better

outcomes

• There are 100 ways to cook an egg and 100 ways

to attack a problem → finding a way that your

employee can improve performance by using what

is unique to them builds confidence, trust and

engagement

Managing Poor

Performance

IDENTIFICATION

• “When my talent is kicking in, I take notice of it

and recognize it.”

• “Before learning about my talent, I didn’t even

realize that it was a talent.”

• “Knowing my talent gives me more confidence

and hope for myself.”

3 Core Components

INTEGRATION

• “Learning about my talents has definitely helped

me to understand the reasoning behind some of

my actions.”

• Learning about my talent has started a habit of

self-reflection”

• “I think about my talent all of the time, in certain

situations I think about how to apply it to be more

effective.”

3 Core Components

CHANGED BEHAVIOR

• “I am using my talents in order to learn better. For

example, one of my talents is ‘relator’; and I have

formed study groups in my classes.”

• “My talent of ‘command’ helps me to take control

and initiate things in my life.”

• “Actively using my talent causes further

engagement that act like a cycle, causing me to

invest more in my talents.”

3 Core Components

Resources

www.viacharacter.org

Resources

Resources