Knowing your own “Signature Strengths” is a critical step in building your own personal brand. As a leader, it’s even more important to help connect your team with their own strengths and talents. Luckily, that process is quick, easy, and free (!) using one of Bobbie LaPorte’s favorite online assessment tools. Watch her June 25 “Calling the Game” video to learn more:
Boost Engagement and Performance with Positive Psychology’s Strengths-Spotting Technique
In these posts, I recently shared a series of videos on the importance of establishing and practicing your personal brand in the workplace.
One of the critical elements of this process is uncovering and articulating your “Signature Strengths,” a fundamental concept from the field of Positive Psychology. Understanding your strengths is the key to defining your value – what you do/deliver, the impact you have – at work.
An extension of this is another concept from Positive Psychology called “Strengths-Spotting – connecting your team with their Signature Strengths and talents. This helps them see and amplify what they already do well and builds the capacity to handle stress and challenges in times like these.
There are lots of ways to uncover the strengths of the people who work for you. One of my favorites is the VIA Strengths Assessment. It’s scientific, free, and takes less than 5 minutes. People always find their results of this assessment accessible, helpful, and enjoyable to share with others.
As a leader with limited resources and time to provide development exercises for your team, knowing your team members’ strengths opens up so many ways for you to help them grow and thrive in their jobs.
How to put your team’s Signature Strengths into practice?
Once you know a team member’s Top 2-3 strengths, you now have the knowledge to help “spot” the strengths, name them, share how you saw them used, and express your appreciation.
As an example:
“John, I was impresses by how well you kept your cool during that heated debate at our meeting today. That took a lot of self-control on your part”.
Simple, but very powerful and effective. And people are often (pleasantly) surprised at what others see and appreciate in them.
We all know how important it is to offer praise and recognition to our teams, especially during times of challenge and uncertainty.
Another benefit of this practice is that you might discover new talents to help accelerate progress on some of your key projects and find opportunities for team members to appreciate and use each other’s signature strengths.