Additional Strengths Coaching
"Each person has an ideal, a hope, a dream which represents the soul. We must give to it the warmth of love, the light of understanding and the essence of encouragement.”
~ COLBY DORR DAM -
Don’t Put Those Strengths on a Shelf - Additional Coaching Sessions
After the initial sessions where themes are discovered, additional sessions will further enhance these themes and develop them into strengths. Cultivating your Strengths takes time, practice and awareness. Additional Strengths Coaching in any combination are unique and beneficial for YOU, just as your Strengths are distinctively YOURS!
Domains of Leadership®
Per Gallup® there are four domains – executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking. Discover yours!
Leaders with dominant strength in the EXECUTING domain know how to make things happen. When you need someone to implement a solution, these are the people who will work tirelessly to get it done. Leaders with a strength to execute have the ability to “catch” an idea and make it a reality.
Those who lead by INFLUENCING help their team reach a much broader audience. People with strength in this domain are always selling the team’s ideas inside and outside the organization. When you need someone to take charge, speak up, and make sure your group is heard, look to someone with the strength to influence.
Those who lead through RELATIONSHIP BUILDING are the essential glue that holds a team together. Without these strengths on a team, in many cases, the group is simply a composite of individuals. In contrast, leaders with exceptional relationship building strength have the unique ability to create groups and organizations that are much greater than the sum of their parts.
Leaders with great STRATEGIC THINKING strengths are the ones who keep us all focused on what could be. They are constantly absorbing and analyzing information and helping the team make better decisions. People with strength in this domain continually stretch our thinking for the future.
Five Ways to Make the Most of Your Strengths
Identify Them
Own Them
Aim Them
Grow Them
Engage Others
Leaks and Plugs
(courtesy of Brent O’Bannon - Strengths Coach)
LEAK
L: LOATHE What activity do you hate to do with a passion?
E: ESCAPE What activity do you want to avoid and get someone else to do?
A: AVERAGE What activity is a weakness in your life or business that, no matter how much you learn or practice it, you will only be average or below average in performance?
K: KINK What activity, no matter how much you improve (and I recommend improving your weakness to a point) there is still a kink in your stomach? A feeling of stress and strain.
PLUG your leaks. We all have weaknesses, but you don’t have to sink! Use your strengths to make it all work. Here’s an example for someone who dislikes public speaking but needs to do some it for work.
P: PLAN Plan on consciously using one or more of your strengths to boost your weaknesses. For example, if “belief” is one of your strengths, then speak on a topic in which you can share strong beliefs. If you’re high in '“responsibility” use it to help you follow through with quality.
L: LEAVE You will likely have to do some public speaking in your work and life, but what if you could eliminate 80% of public speaking? Of course, don’t volunteer for public speaking jobs. Make it clear to your boss and team that you want to decrease any opportunity that could create public speaking moments.
U: UNITE Whom on your team could you unite with that excels at public speaking? Who loves public speaking and could take the pressure off of you? Many companies hire a spokesperson. You can, too, in critical public speaking situations. Who knows! You could even barter with someone who has the strength of public speaking.
G: GROW No matter how hard we try, we all have to do things that involve our weaknesses. Go to Toastmasters or hire a coach to help you maximize your speaking abilities. Grow in the basics and let it go. Take the pressure off yourself to be the best at everything. Instead, invest your time and energy in your strengths.
Personal
Life Balance
Life issue to tackle? Problem to solve?
Understanding partners and friends
Parenting children with different talents – they are there at an early age. There is an assessment called Gallup StrengthsExplorer for children 10-14 that utilizes ten theme areas.
Professional
Career growth
Career change
Meeting work/career goals
Academic
Basements and Balconies
Is your strength(s) working for or against you? Too much of a good thing? Are you using your strength in a noThis session explores the dark side Strengths. 4) Overused strengths become toxic. With the exception of moderation itself, everything is better in moderation. The scientific paradigm for this is the “too much of a good thing” effect, which indicates that even positive qualities will become toxic if they are overused or expressed in excess. For example, conscientiousness and attention to detail turn into counterproductive perfectionism and obsessiveness. Confidence becomes overconfidence and arrogance. Ambition turns into greed. And imagination into odd eccentricity.
Board of Directors
We can’t have all of the themes, and the nonconforming ones (think from the bottom up) we could really use in our life. Develop your own Board of Directors - family members, colleagues, friends who have some of these nonconforming themes as their Strengths to compliment yours. Let’s tap into those awesome resources.