From average to exceptional
Do you feel deeply that you have something unique to bring to the world? If so, you may have the strengthsfinder significance talent.
When you’re leading from your significance strength, you’re not just doing a job, you’re leaving a legacy.
You know you have something unique to contribute and want others to see it.
Many of the non-profit leaders I’ve coached leverage this strength to make a meaningful impact on the people and world around them.
The significance StrengthsFinder talent means you feel driven to excel, focused on who you become and what you leave behind.
You want to make the world a better place, but you also want to be recognized and valued for what you bring to the table.
You know you have something unique to contribute and want others to see it.
If you’re already familiar with StrengthsFinder, you can skip over the next section.
SterengthsFinder, now CliftonStrengths, is an assessment based on strengths psychology. The fundamental premise is you will get farther by maxing out your strengths rather than trying to improve your weaknesses.
I’ve seen numerous leaders grow as they identified their talents and turned them into well-developed strengths. But you don’t have to be a leader to benefit from StrengthsFinder, and you can apply it to more than just work.
Understanding your strengths and weaknesses helps you better understand and live out your unique design.
Significance is just one of the 34 different strengths measured by StengthsFinder. When you take the assessment, you will get back your top 5 strengths. You can pay for an ordered list of all 34, but I wouldn’t recommend that the first time you take the assessment.
Focus is critical to developing your strengths. Keeping just your top 5 in view helps you make meaningful growth in the areas of your life with the highest leverage and impact.
So you’ve taken the StrengthsFinder assessment, received your results and found significance in the list. Now you’re wondering how to grow or leverage this strength in your leadership.
I know both the energy and weightiness of being driven by the desire to make a significant impact in the world and the people around me. I want to help you like I've helped others identify your life mission, where you want to end up and work from there to guide how you live today.
These are four strategies I’ve seen help those with the significance strength launch into a life of impact.
Learn to recognize behaviors when you're over-leveraging your strengths to the point that they become liabilities. And discover the path back to health.
How do you want to be known? What legacy do you want to leave? When you have clear answers to these questions, you’ll feel solidly oriented by a clear direction and purpose in life.
Imagine it’s the day of your death. All the people you’ve known are gathered, grieving but also sharing fond memories. What do you hope they say? What will be the themes of the stories shared that day?
You’re not just doing a job, you’re leaving a legacy.
This activity might feel strange, but take out a piece of paper and write down the five people closest to you in your life. Now write what you hope they will say about you when you’re gone. When you’re done, look for themes. This is the first step to clarifying the purposes that will guide your life.
If you want to explore this further, sign up for my free 5-day journey to living from your priorities.
Part of your significance strength involves being recognized for what you bring to the table.
Making a personal development plan will help you focus your desire to grow and give you a clear path to leveling up your contribution.
Your personal development can include any area of your life, from physical or mental health to certification to help your career. The common pitfall I see people fall into is trying to do too much at once.
The secret superpower of a personal development plan is focus.
Choose 1-2 things you will work on over the next 3-4 months. For each, describe three specific actions you will take to grow and at least one person who will join you in the journey.
Journeys are best when taken with others. Leverage your significance strength in your leadership by recognizing the unique strengths and contributions of your team.
Work with your team to write a vision statement for who they will become and what they will leave behind.
Make the investment in yourself and others to become exceptional.
Don’t just print it and hang it on the wall. Reference the vision regularly when you’re making decisions and doing the work. When your team can see themselves in the vision, they will be motivated to do what it takes to get there.
In the first strategy, you imagined what you want to be true at the end of your life. Goals bring the gap between your lifetime impact and your daily actions.
Like your personal development plan, focus and prioritization are essential to successfully setting and achieving goals.
There are numerous goal-setting strategies out there. The two I recommend to most leaders are.
As you learn to lead using your significance strength, you can take yourself and others from average to exceptional
You have a meaningful contribution to make. Don’t go through the motions; just clocking in and clocking out. Make the investment in yourself and others to become exceptional.
Those with significance as a strength can struggle with an antipattern of approval-seeking, as they focus more on how others see them than on how they really are. Learning the strengths antipatterns will allow you to continue growing as a healthy, intentional leader.
You are on an extraordinary journey to living and leading from your strengths. You can explore the list below to learn about the rest of your top 5 strengths.
Strengths-based growth doesn’t encourage you to ignore your weaknesses but not to spend too much time trying to turn them into strengths. Instead, you may need to find team members or systems to fill in your gaps.
Learn more about how StrengthsFind influences your leadership.
For some people, their strengths ranked 5, 6 or 7 are almost even. You could also be misattributing a skill or behavior to a specific strength.
Learn more about how StrengthsFind influences your leadership.
Seeing your other 29 strengths can help give you a fuller picture. But initially, someone should focus on further developing those top 5 strengths rather than trying to give attention across the list. Once you have a good grasp on what it looks like to lead from your top 5, it can be helpful to explore the rest of the list.
Learn more about how StrengthsFind influences your leadership.
A talent is your natural way of thinking or behaving. A strength is a talent developed over time through knowledge, skills and practice.
Learn more about how StrengthsFinder influences your leadership.
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Over 5 days, I’ll teach you how to use the power of story through a proven framework to craft the most profitable elevator pitch you’ve ever written.