Discussion 2 Your Leadership Profile
Do you believe you have the traits to be an effective leader? Perhaps you are already in a supervisory role, but as has been discussed previously, appointment does not guarantee leadership skills.
How can you evaluate your own leadership skills and behaviors? You can start by analyzing your performance in specific areas of leadership. In this Discussion, you will complete Gallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment. This assessment will identify your personal strengths, which have been shown to improve motivation, engagement, and academic self-conference. Through this assessment, you will discover your top five themes—which you can reflect upon and use to leverage your talents for optimal
success and examine how the results relate to your leadership traits.
To Prepare:
Complete the StrengthsFinder assessment instrument, per the instructions found in this Module’s Learning Resources.
· Reflect on the results of your Assessment and consider how the results relate to your leadership traits of a Transformational leader.
Post a brief description of your results from the StrengthsFinder assessment. Then, briefly describe two core values, two strengths, and two characteristics that you would like to strengthen based on the results of your StrengthsFinder assessment. Be specific.
Depending on the order of your themes and how you responded to the assessment, some of your themes may share identical insight statements. If this occurs, the lower ranked theme will not display insight statements to avoid duplication on your report.
Your Top 5 Themes
1. Discipline
2. Consistency
3. Relator
4. Arranger
5. Individualization
Discipline
SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Discipline theme enjoy routine and structure. Their world is best described by the order they create.
YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
By nature, you undoubtedly consider ways you can enhance standardized procedures that already serve you well. You probably understand the importance of doing various tasks and activities the same way day after day. Even so, you are inclined to make many things better when the opportunity presents itself. Because of your strengths, you traditionally prefer to finish things before they are due. You are apt to give yourself sufficient time to outline the steps of each activity. When you are diligent about planning, your ability to move efficiently toward the deadline improves. Driven by your talents, you are described as levelheaded. You use reason to determine which activities need to be done first, second, and third. You are typically eager to finalize your plan so you can start working. Chances are good that you periodically institute procedures and establish rules that help certain groups of people manage the daily, weekly, monthly, or annual chores that are part of any project. Perhaps you outline a detailed plan. You may work to make sure specific individuals understand it. Possibly these are two ways you maintain healthy relationships with friends who also are your coworkers, teammates, supervisors, peers, direct reports, or study partners. Instinctively, you might have a reputation for creating certain types of agendas, itineraries, processes, or procedures for recurring activities. You may leave few things to chance. By outlining goals, timelines, deadlines, assignments, and other details, perhaps you expect certain people to automatically implement your plan. Maybe you appreciate individuals who follow it step by step. However, you might grow impatient with those who ignore it in part or altogether. Periodically their lack of order causes inefficiencies, gaps in performance, errors, or quarrels.
Questions
1. As you read your personalized strengths insights, what words, phrases, or lines stand out to you?
2. Out of all the talents in this insight, what would you like for others to see most in you?
Consistency
SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Consistency theme are keenly aware of the need to treat people the same. They try to treat everyone in the world with consistency by setting up clear rules and adhering to them.
YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
Driven by your talents, you are happy to do exactly what is assigned to you, as long as you sense you are not being asked to carry more than your fair share of the workload. Checking those tasks off your list brings you much pleasure, and it helps you get along with others who notice your close attention to the work required of you. Instinctively, you enjoy being physically and/or mentally active. This is especially true when you are assigned tasks to finish by day’s end. As long as the overall workload is evenly distributed among people, you tend to be willing and eager to perform your daily chores. Because of your strengths, you sometimes welcome opportunities to acquire additional knowledge or new skills. From a practical perspective, ongoing education might allow you to take advantage of experiences or engage in activities for the first time. You may want others to be informed about these training sessions. Perhaps it strikes you as unjust or elitist — that is, snobbish — not to make this news available to everyone. By nature, you may be able to simply and objectively summarize the key points from complex group discussions. In doing so, you might intend to give everyone an opportunity to understand and therefore contribute their own thoughts. Chances are good that you help keep the peace on your team by doing your share of each day’s assignments. You generally perform your tasks so no one in the group has to do chores you overlooked, ignored, or forgot.
Questions
1. As you read your personalized strengths insights, what words, phrases, or lines stand out to you?
2. Out of all the talents in this insight, what would you like for others to see most in you?
Relator
SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Relator theme enjoy close relationships with others. They find deep satisfaction in working hard with friends to achieve a goal.
YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
Chances are good that you have close companions who frequently seek your guidance. You help them find answers to their personal and professional problems. This makes you a valuable friend. It’s very likely that you thoughtfully select your friends. You avoid rushing into relationships. Once you trust and care about someone, the individual probably seeks your counsel. Because of your strengths, you genuinely enjoy activities when just about everything makes sense. You naturally gravitate to tasks where facts, events, processes, or ideas are methodically outlined. Instinctively, you sometimes feel comfortable being open and honest about who you are. Maybe you avoid people who are less than truthful. You may prefer to spend time with individuals who speak as candidly as you do about their strengths, shortcomings, hopes, failures, or successes. Driven by your talents, you may be convinced that you are measuring up to your potential. Perhaps you know when you are doing your best work or earning the highest grades you possibly can.
Questions
1. As you read your personalized strengths insights, what words, phrases, or lines stand out to you?
2. Out of all the talents in this insight, what would you like for others to see most in you?
Arranger
SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Arranger theme can organize, but they also have a flexibility that complements this ability. They like to figure out how all of the pieces and resources can be arranged for maximum productivity.
YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
Driven by your talents, you use logic to coordinate your teammates’ projects, plans, meeting agendas, or travel itineraries. You are likely to decide who needs to be involved in an activity. You are apt to determine what supplies are needed by each person. You can position people and resources in the right place at the right time for the right reasons. It’s very likely that you routinely consider what you can contribute to the group. You continually look for ways to upgrade your performance, effectiveness, or efficiency. You pinpoint things you want to do better. You identify areas of opportunity for individual teammates and the entire group. Undoubtedly, you think about how these enhancements can be made. Instinctively, you can stand in a teammate’s emotional space to gain insights into what that person feels and/or thinks. You probably have a gift for looking at the world through someone else’s experiences. You frequently set aside your opinions, ideas, and/or past history to attune yourself to another human being’s condition. Chances are good that you are frequently the team member who pays close attention to whatever people say. Because of your strengths, you may avoid associating with people who lack integrity or have proven themselves unworthy of your trust.
Questions
1. As you read your personalized strengths insights, what words, phrases, or lines stand out to you?
2. Out of all the talents in this insight, what would you like for others to see most in you?
Individualization
SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Individualization theme are intrigued with the unique qualities of each person. They have a gift for figuring out how people who are different can work together productively.
YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
Because of your strengths, you can stand in another person’s place and view what is going on from his or her unique perspective. You have an ability to become well-acquainted with individuals. This magnifies your capacity to feel their joys and sorrows as well as their successes and failures. Driven by your talents, you occasionally spend time alone thinking about which individuals work well together. Perhaps your thoughtful examination of each human being allows you to mix and match the strengths of several individuals. Sometimes the strengths of one person compensate for the limitations of another person, and vice versa. You might conclude that a group’s true strength lies in the diversity of its members’ knowledge, skills, motivations, work styles, or thinking styles. Instinctively, you might be able to distinguish each person’s unique contribution to a conversation. In some ways, you guide the exchange of information by drawing out the singular perspectives of individuals. Once in a while, you help others express their varied, peculiar, eccentric, quaint, or unusual viewpoints. Perhaps you enliven dialogues by honoring the value of each human being. Chances are good that you might show people ways they can rely on one another’s unique styles of thinking, learning, or working. You may demonstrate how a group of people accomplishes more when everyone cooperates. Perhaps you identify the basic parts of a process, plan, idea, or program. To some degree, you make assignments based on what each person does well. It’s very likely that you may have a gift for noticing the differences between people. You might think variety is a good thing, not a bad thing. You might help individuals from diverse backgrounds discover ways they can cooperate so the team succeeds.
Questions
1. As you read your personalized strengths insights, what words, phrases, or lines stand out to you?
2. Out of all the talents in this insight, what would you like for others to see most in you?
