Leading with the Positivity StrengthsFinder Talent
From discouragement to hope
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Does your day brighten when you’ve made someone else smile?
If so, you may have a positivity talent.
When developed into a strength, positivity keeps you and your team optimistic by focusing on what is possible. Motivating others might just be one of your leadership superpowers.
The glass is always half full, and you’re confident more water can be found.
You may wonder why others keep dwelling on the negative side of things.
Chronic complaining and negativity really drain you, but even in situations where everyone else sees problems, you’re able to see the bright side.
Positivity StrengthsFinder TL;DR.
The positivity StrengthsFinder talent means you have a strong enthusiasm for both today and the future. The glass is always half full, and you’re confident more water can be found. With all the challenges and setbacks teams face today, your leadership brings much-needed optimism.
If you’re already familiar with StrengthsFinder, you can skip over the next section.
What is StrengthsFinder?
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.
Positivity 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.
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How do you lead well with positivity in your StrengthsFinder top 5?
So you’ve taken the StrengthsFinder assessment, received your results and found positivity in the list. Now you’re wondering how to grow or leverage this strength in your leadership.
I've seen the power of encouragement delivered when it's needed. Having led many teams through hard seasons, I know how far a positive attitude can take people.
Having co-led with people who applied their strength of positivity, and I learned from them the power and impact of consistent celebration within a team.
These are four strategies I’ve seen leaders with positivity use to motivate and encourage teams.
- Look for key moments.
- Facilitate celebration.
- Share your enthusiasm.
- Don’t avoid the hard truth.
Leadership isn’t a journey you should take alone. What if you had someone to come alongside you? I provide coaching to help you reach your vision, lead others and grow as a leader.
Look for key moments.
People and teams often need encouragement. But there are those critical moments where the outlook on the future will inform decisions that might cause people or projects to sink or swim.
Positivity keeps you and your team optimistic by focusing on what is possible.
Look for those moments, paying attention not just to the words people use but also their non-verbals like body language or tone.
Lean into those moments where you can more than just brighten their day. You can give hope.
Facilitate celebration.
Not every leader is good at this, and if you offer to help, it will likely be a relief.
As I mentioned before, celebration didn’t come naturally to me as a leader. Need something evaluated or a complicated problem solved? I’m in my sweet spot and leveraging all my strengths. But this can lead to me defaulting to critique rather than encouragement and celebration.
People are designed to celebrate. Our brain chemistry changes during celebration.
You can facilitate a one-off celebration time. Or even better, build it into the cadence of your team.
Celebration doesn’t have to just focus on accomplished goals, though this should certainly be included. Celebrate the effort given or how people treated each other during the process.
Fundamentally celebration is an exercise in gratitude. Many people struggle to recognize what they have to be grateful for, especially when stressed. You have a gift to bring as you apply your strength of positivity.
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Don’t avoid the hard truth.
When under stress, our strengths sometimes can become our weakness.
For someone with the positivity strength, this might look like ignoring real problems or underselling the risk.
It’s common to avoid what’s difficult or painful. I’ve seen leaders of whole divisions choose not to prioritize the work to be done because addressing what was truly important would be painful to face. This approach did nobody any favors.
The best strategy I can offer here is to remember that engaging what is broken is the path to fixing it. It may not feel like the bright side yet, but it is the light at the end of the tunnel.
As you learn to lead using your positivity strength, you can help others move from discouragement to hope.
Don’t let others get stuck in a negativity spiral. A better future is possible, and you might be the best one to help others envision it.
The positivity StrengthsFinder talent means you have a strong enthusiasm for both today and the future.
Action Plan
Those with the strength of positivity can struggle with an antipattern of intentional naiveté. 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
StrengthsFinder
So do I totally ignore my weaknesses and just focus on my 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.
There are strengths I think I have; why didn’t they didn’t show up in my top 5?
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.
Should I pay to see all 34 strengths?
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.
What’s the difference between a talent and a strength?
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.
