Strengths-based Leadership

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

• 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

• 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

• 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

Strengths-based Leadership

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