StrengthsFinder 2.0 - Tom Rath -AND- Strengths Based Leadership - Tom Rath and Barry Conchie

Okay, first of all, Tom Rath?  If you're reading this, CALL ME.  You are absolutely, completely, 110% adorable and I have a crush on you.  *sigh*

But onto the reason I'm here.  I had lunch with the COO of the company where I work a few weeks ago, and she lent me a copy of Strengths Based Leadership.  The main tenet is that we all have strengths and weaknesses, and as employees (and people), we are more engaged and much happier when we can do things that play to and engage our strengths.  Makes sense!  But we're in a culture where more focus - much more - is placed on weaknesses and "overcoming" or "improving" them.  While it's important to know your weaknesses, it's also important to know your strengths and to be able to use them.  And this book talks about 34 different strengths, and how they fall into 4 different categories: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, Strategic Thinking.  People's main strengths can fall into any or all of these 4 areas, but may lie principally in one area.  And leadership needs to come from that area and also bring in people with strengths in other areas for things to work as best they can.  It's a really interesting book and a great concept.

So this led me to StrengthsFinder 2.0 - the book that started it all, I think, and the book that comes with a code to an online exam where you can find out your top 5 strengths.  I read the book and took the exam, and - are you ready? - my top 5 strengths are: Harmony, Empathy, Input, Relator and Discipline.  Of these, three fall under Relationship Building, one under Executing and one under Strategic Thinking.  Clearly I'm not all that great at Influencing.  And - honestly - that makes sense to me.  I know what I feel and what my opinions are, but I'm not always great at expressing them.  I offer an opinion but if you don't want to listen, then that's fine.

I don't know that there's anything rocket science in here in terms of finding out my strengths.  But I really appreciated and learned from reading about this idea of playing to our strengths.  And the book and website have a lot of resources (like my personalized 20 page report about my strengths) that I'm going to continue to read and explore.  And, of course, discuss in my next follow-up meeting with the COO.