The machinery by which we recognize facial emotion, located in a brain region called the amygdala, reflects our nature as a whole: two-thirds of neurons in the amygdala are geared toward bad news, immediately responding and storing it in our long-term memory, points out neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at University of California, Berkeley (4). This is what causes the ‘fight or flight’ reflex – a survival instinct based on our ability to use memory to quickly assess threats. And this serves us well when we need to assess bad situations. What with an air pilot who would look at a snowstorm positively and decide to take off with frozen wings?
When we have evaluation reviews with our boss at work, this curse of the human condition to focus on weaknesses is that we tend to focus on the negative elements of such feedback over the positive.
This cognitive bias is limiting because whilst it is important to assess and manage our weakness it is even more important to build upon our strengths!
Another fundamental problem with all types of feedback: it focuses on the past, on what has already occurred—not on the infinite variety of opportunities that can happen in the future. As such, feedback can be limited and static, as opposed to expansive and dynamic.
Our clients come to us mostly with issues they want to fix or with situations they are not satisfied with and would like to change.
We all have qualities and we tend to find using these easier than other activities. Yet many people go through their lives without truly realizing the things they excel at. Or they spend too many years wasting their energy on trying to overcome their weakness. This often leads people into attempting to become someone they are inherently not or will never be! And working on weaknesses creates an average person.
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Coaching with Strengths
I have done the strengths-work myself. Looking into myself helped me to be a better coach. It helped me in adjusting the steering wheel on the road of my own journey. It is a continuous journey of learning, adjusting and tweaking.
My strengths and values enable me, energize me, and direct me towards where I want to go. They keep me on track. Very much like a compass.
“To Know Thyself”, is a phrase, by Socrates and also an inscription at the Oracle of Delphi in Ancient Greece. It is useful to discuss the importance of getting to know your self. As a coach, we can ask: What motivates you? What is important to you? What you love doing? What are 3 traits your friends would describe you by? What characteristics do you like about yourself? Socrates believed that self-knowledge was important in order to find peace, happiness, and to become who we are meant to be in life. Getting to know yourself is discovering, exploring and getting to know everything about who you are and who you want to be. It is about looking inside and analyzing what you like and dislike.
Knowing your strengths is just a piece of your whole-ness. Knowing your weaknesses, the other equation. What if we would all focus solely on our weaknesses and all would strive to be great at everything? We would promote mediocrity, wouldn’t we?
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What are the benefits of coaching with strengths?
Knowing, using and talking about your strengths set in motion many good things:
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How do you share and talk about your strengths?
How you share and talk about strengths in a coaching relationship is crucial.
In your coach marketing material you can bring up that you are a “Strengths-based coach” or “Strengths-focused coach”. Prospective clients or current clients may have noticed this and you may ask how they interpret this. In a discovery session, you may want to bring your strengths approach up and shine a light on what coaching is about. It is in essence about moving a client towards their potential. And potential means what it is you are able to do. What you are good at. In short your values and strengths.
As a coach, you can illustrate the use of strengths by showing how you use your strengths in your own life: professional/personal. It is true that it is immodest if your approach is to see yourself as better than others. Present yourself as someone who is made up of strengths and weaknesses. Just like everyone else. Make sure you bring yourself into a conversation on an equal level as the others.
The timing of introducing strengths in to coaching is important. For some clients it makes more sense to work on their weaknesses first. Strengths can then slowly be introduced. Clients experience positive emotions and are energized by talking about activities where their values are engaged and love to bring their strengths to the foreground. In the coaching relationship, talking about strengths – a topic many people find awkward – is a great topic. The timing of when to introduce strengths, the readiness to work on them is always decided by the client. The client is after all putting the agenda together.
Take one strength at a time
If you do feel as though it is too much information to take in at once, you approach one strength at a time. There is no prescribed length of time that you should invest into each strength, but try owning your top strength first, and then moving on to the next one when you’re ready.
Explain
I share my strengths in workshops after I introduce the reason why I do this and what the benefits of strengths are in job satisfaction and how they affect an overall feeling of well-being.
I added my strengths at the end of this research paper and linked them to how I use these strengths in my coaching practice. This can be helpful for clients to see how strengths can have a positive effect on your work.
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Strengths and Leadership
A leader convinces other people to follow his vision. A great leader is trustworthy, shows humility, is not afraid to admit mistakes, is non-judgmental, inspires, is an example, creates confidence in other people and moves them to action. Coaches are leaders in what they do. And each leader has its own leadership-DNA, its own particularity, its unique way of leading.
Our aim is to have people follow our example. We walk the talk.
One of the things I do as a leader of my own life is being coached. As a coach I tell people being coached is so powerful. Yet many coaches are not being coached! It gives me tremendous satisfaction to have a coach. He acts as a catalyst in achieving my goals, helps me to focus on what is important, gives me confidence, helps me overcome challenges, re-frames my limiting beliefs…
Walking the talk means being coached, being honest to others about what you do. And honesty happens to be one of my strengths.
What great leaders have in common is that they are aware of their strengths. Fact is that not many people know their strengths. This is lacking in our education. We have not been trained to do so.
Exploring ourselves, we tend to look at what we can do better, what is wrong and what can be improved. In my coaching practice, I see the value of looking at what works in a client, what you are good at, what gives you energy and makes you want to do more of certain things. And consequentially, focus more on that part.
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What about Weaknesses?
“What about weaknesses?” you may ask. “What if I have a weakness that really affects my situation?”
I came across the article below.
Maximizing Your Potential by Knowing Your Strengths and Managing Your Weaknesses – SUNDAY, APRIL 22, 2012 (5)
Many of us are painfully aware of the weaknesses that hold us back and are just as unaware of our strengths, our inherit talents and abilities. Focusing on weaknesses while ignoring strengths creates feelings of discouragement, failure, low self-esteem, and can even contribute to depression. Conversely, over estimating our strengths can be just as unproductive. It is only when we give equal weight to our strengths and weaknesses that we can realistically recognize our abilities and actualize our potentials. It is also important to consider personal relationships since our relationships can either nourish our strengths or take advantage of our personal weaknesses.
The first step in maximizing one’s potential begins with self-examination. Self-examination is what allows us to identify our “uniqueness” by identifying our individual strengths and weaknesses. Although this endeavor may feel like a challenge to many because of our busy schedules and busy lives, finding the time to examine and reflect upon key questions concerning who we are, our individual drives, personalities, passions, habits, values, and our strengths and weaknesses is crucial to maximizing our potential. It is also normal to feel afraid of what self-reflection and self-examination may lead us to discover about ourselves and for many, guidance from a mental health professional such as a psychologist or psychiatrist, may be beneficial. However, self-awareness is a crucial component for maximizing potential and without it good personal judgment and the ability to identify opportunities that can lead to rewarding personal and professional growth will most likely be overlooked.
Examining our weaknesses can be extremely difficult since it can create feelings of vulnerability, discouragement, powerlessness, and even low self-esteem. However, it is important to recognize that we all have weaknesses and it is not something to be ashamed of. Our weaknesses are what make us unique and even help us to connect with other people and to build deep, meaningful relationships. All of us are imperfect and we relate well to other people’s flaws.
A good way to begin identifying weaknesses is by monitoring negative feelings. Evaluate if you often feel angry, frustrated, resentful, jealous and/or envious? For example, if you find yourself feeling envious of a particular person, rather than trying to avoid these feelings, identify what exactly it is about this person you envy. Exploring our envious feelings gives us the opportunity to understand what traits we wish to possess or goals we wish to accomplish. Asking the person we envy how he or she accomplished whatever it is we admire helps us to be able to actualize our goals. In this case, learning from “weaknesses” transforms into becoming a personal strength and an opportunity for personal and professional growth.
We all have strengths but sadly many of us do not utilize or even acknowledge them. Examples of personal strengths would be having the ability to be compassionate with others and ourselves, being curious, responsible, consistent, and self-disciplined. Acknowledging our strengths does not make us vain, self-centered, or even unlikeable.
A good way to identify your strengths is to ask yourself a series of questions such as: Do I accomplish my goals (small and large) in a timely manner, am I curious, do I desire success and achievement, am I compassionate, do I enjoy caring for other people, do I embrace change, can I control my emotions, do I enjoy learning new things, can I accept criticism without being defensive or angry, am I generous and kind? It is a sign of strength to be aware of your weaknesses, to know them, to manage them, and to accept them. Self-awareness gives us the ability to be fully aware of our strengths, our inherit talents, and to have the courage and ability to manage and accept our weaknesses. When this reality is achieved we acquire the necessary insight to reach our maximum potential!
This article was written by Paula Durlofsky, Ph.D.
Many clients, when they start being coached, have this idea that talking about your strengths is cocky and narcissistic. Well, the truth is, I do not introduce myself with: “Hi, I am Marika. And you know what? I am at my best when I…” I am a strong believer in humility. One of the top traits of true leadership is humility. If it wasn’t for my own tremendous and powerful coach who guided me in setting up my coaching practice here in Shanghai, I would never have dreamed talking about my personal strengths on my website and in workshops I give about the power of strengths.
As I mentioned before, another trait of true leadership is to know your own strengths and act upon them. And to make sure to have people in your team with other, complementary strengths and have them act upon those. A leader will praise his followers for their actions and gives feedback instead of focusing on failure.
Focusing on weaknesses diminishes confidence and has the added disadvantage to nurture mediocrity. Doing the opposite, working with your strengths increases confidence, respect, seeing possibilities and opportunities, energizes…
What I do want to point out is that we do not really know what our strengths are. Avoiding talking about strengths is because in many cases, there is no awareness. Clients find it much easier to sum up their weaknesses. And want to find a way to improve those. On the coaching agenda, clients come up with a whole list of things they are bad at: I am not good at journaling, I should be better organized, I am not good at listening and communicating, I am passive, I cannot say no, I have a hard time making interesting presentation, I am not confident, I want to be a better team leader, I am too introverted, I am no good at…
For starters, knowing your faults is a great first step. Before talking about strengths, having awareness of your weaknesses and of what does not work so well is even essential. As Paula states in the article, “It is a sign of strength to be aware of your weaknesses, to know them, to manage them, and to accept them.” This can be a first step into gaining insights in your strengths.
This does not mean that weaknesses need to be turned into strengths or that you need to improve them. If we all want to be great at everything – which is not achievable – we would aim for mediocrity. It is impossible to be good at everything. It is true that our society encourages us to be well rounded. There is however no such thing as a well-rounded manager/leader. Managing your weaknesses and being fully aware that you lack some talents is a better approach.