StrengthsFinder assessment LEADERSHIP PROFILE Discussion Essay

StrengthsFinder assessment LEADERSHIP PROFILE Discussion Essay

StrengthsFinder Assessment Results
 
Living in a talent-driven society, developing and identifying our strengths is imperative to having successful lifestyles and careers (Rath, 2007, pg. 11). The results from the StrengthsFinder assessment indicate that my five most dominant talent themes for success are futuristic, relator, empathy, achiever, and includer. The assessment describes me as Futuristic as I look to the future with inspirational visions of what could be. My attitude toward my relationships is described as a Relator as I find comfort strength from being around close friends. I portray Empathy in the way that I anticipate the needs and questions of others, which draws people to me.  My Achiever theme explains my drive and constant need for achievement. My theme of Includer relates to my desire to include people and make them feel part of the group.
 
Core Values
 
Happiness and Balance are two core values that I would like to strengthen in my everyday life and career. These values relate as I often struggle to find and maintain happiness as I also struggle to find balance between my commitments, responsibilities, and relationships. The StrengthsFinder assessment defined me as an Achiever as I constantly have the need to do more, which causes stress. Another theme that describes my success is futuristic, which means that I am always looking to the future and what is next. Feeling overwhelmed can quickly lead to unhappiness and struggling to balance the stressors in my life.
 
Strengths
 
As an Achiever, I have an internal fire burning inside of me to accomplish more. Knowledge and skills are two strengths that I would like to improve, based on my StrengthsFinder assessment. As a nurse, you can never have too much knowledge or too many skills. Increasing these strengths help me grow and provide guidance in navigating through challenges in my career. Knowledge and skills are important factors in the strengths equation. Without facts in your mind and skills at your disposal, talent can be wasted (Rath, 2007, pg. 19).
 
Characteristics
 
A characteristic that I am always striving to improve is patience. As an Achiever, having patience will help me to set the pace when living with a constant need for accomplishment and achievement. As an Includer, I want to include others to make them feel accepted and comfortable. The assessment also describes me as a Relator as I tend to pull toward people I already know instead of establishing new relationships. I would like to challenge myself to be more outgoing and friendly as these characteristics improve my relationships in my personal life and career.
 
References
 
Rath, T. (2007). Strengths Finder 2.0. Gallup Press.
 

Strengths Finger Signature Theme Report.pdf

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Collapse SubdiscussionMorayo Oloidi

Morayo Oloidi
Dec 29, 2022Dec 29, 2022 at 11:15am

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Hello Heather,
You have a great mix of leadership themes! I firmly believe that empathy is one of the key traits a leader should have. Putting yourself in the shoes of others and genuinely understanding every individual in your team directly coincides with the harmony aspect of your leadership themes.
Empathic leadership increases the effectiveness of team members. Leaders who exhibit empathy positively affect employees’ performance, satisfaction, and overall well-being. Team members also feel empowered and are emotionally balanced, thus creating a healthy work environment. Empathic leaders generally empower their followers by recognizing every person’s abilities and developing them (Zivkovic, 2022). Based on my experience following an empathic leader, they exhibit empathy and make team members enthusiastic about going to work and interacting with the team.
To become a good team builder, I think one must become a transformational leader as they are leaders who catalyze positive change and promote well-functioning teams. Transformational leaders focus on their people and inspire them to go above and beyond. They are leaders that capitalize on the team members and not the processes to achieve success in their projects (Nauman et al., 2021). A transformational leader also is open to sharing his visions with the whole team and encourages the team to make them come to fruition (Jacobsen et al., 2021). Looking at your top five themes, you are very nicely fit to be a transformational leader as you have the traits of one. You have enthusiasm, are flexible, and are open to the opinions of others.
 
References
Jacobsen, C., Andersen, L., Bøllingtoft, A., & Eriksen, T. (2021). Can leadership training improve organizational effectiveness? Evidence from a randomized field experiment on transformational and transactional leadership. Public Administration Review, 82(1), 117–131. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13356Links to an external site.
Nauman, S., Musawir, A., Munir, H., & Rasheed, I. (2021). Enhancing the impact of transformational leadership and team-building on project success: The moderating role of empowerment climate. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 15(2), 423–447. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmpb-02-2021-0031Links to an external site.
Zivkovic, S. (2022). Empathy in leadership: How it enhances effectiveness. Economic and Social Development: Book of Proceedings, 454–467. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Venelin-Terziev/publication/360112360_Spiritual_leaders_of_the_Bulgarian_nation/links/6262c0c9ee24725b3ebde76d/Spiritual-leaders-of-the-Bulgarian-nation.pdf#page=462Links to an external site.

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Collapse SubdiscussionJada Sewell

Jada Sewell
Dec 29, 2022Dec 29, 2022 at 4:09pm

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Hello Heather,
I too have wondered why happiness always seems elusive, and one day a song played on the radio and the writer of the song stated that happiness is the product of something happening, but joy springs eternal, and no one can produce or take it away from you. Happiness for most, including myself, is thought to be made of positive emotions as well as a sense of purpose or meaning, however the extent to which different aspects of happiness matter to us varies (Happiness values, n.d.).
When joy is practiced as a fundamental value, the person embraces real contentment not because they are happy, but that they have reached a destination within themselves that creates a profound reality of peace and hope (Is joy a top core value, 2022). You can feel joy even in sadness, much like when a loved one passes. You celebrate the life and love that the person gifted to your life, but the fact that they are no longer present in body is what cultivates sadness.
It is my opinion that if you strive for joy, regardless of what happens in your life, you will be able to find sunshine even in the midst of cloudy days. Henry David Thoreau said it best ” Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder” (Weller, 2016).
References:
Admin. (2022, May 27). Is joy a top core value? Boost Your Personal Development. Retrieved December 29, 2022, from https://www.boostyourpersonaldevelopment.com/is-joy-one-of-your-top-core-value/
Happiness values. The Berkeley Well-Being Institute. (n.d.). Retrieved December 29, 2022, from https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/happiness-values-activity.html
Weller, C. (2016, May 18). 12 of history’s greatest philosophers reveal the secret to happiness. Business Insider. Retrieved December 29, 2022, from https://www.businessinsider.com/12-philosophers-share-quotes-on-happiness-2016-5

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Collapse SubdiscussionHeather Fechko

Heather Fechko
Dec 29, 2022Dec 29, 2022 at 10pm

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Thank you, Jada! I truly appreciate the thought behind your response. It is a great reminder that happiness stems from joy, and joy can be found in so many places.
– Heather

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Collapse SubdiscussionAleyna Soyoung Shin

Aleyna Soyoung Shin
Dec 28, 2022Dec 28, 2022 at 12:52am

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Strengths Finder provides “in-depth analysis and unique descriptions of your top five CliftonStrengths themes” (Rath, 2007) through the information obtained through the survey, and it helps identify the talents of personality that can be strengthened rather than assessing the weakness to improve. The five themes that were listed after the assessment as my talents were harmony, consistency, analytical, deliberative, and futuristic. At first, I thought those talent themes were not really who I was, but after reading the explanations for each theme, I could understand why. I am a person who seeks areas of agreement rather than conflict, treats people the same, searches for reasons and causes, anticipates obstacles in the future, and gets inspired by the future.
Two core values that I would like to strengthen would be responsibility and optimism. Knowing what you are responsible for and your limits are essential to work as a team with others. I like to help my team members when they need or ask for help. However, if they are not doing anything, expecting others to help them, I get stressed and feel like I’d not like to work with them as a team. I want people to be as responsible as I do. And I try to give myself as an example. At the same time, I am more pessimistic than optimistic. Optimistic people are more likely to act and put effort into achieving their goals than pessimistic people (Umoh, 2017). When I see my optimistic friends who tend to go with the flow instead of worrying about the future unnecessarily, like me, they get way less stress and are able to stay calm and positive all the time, resulting in good results most of the time.
Two strengths that I’d like to accomplish more based on my StrengthsFinder are harmony and deliberativeness. Harmony is when you can work with others as a team, compromising with each other and helping each other. It is a critical part of being a leader in a team because you need to know how to work with everyone, minimize any conflicts between team members, and know how to find agreements when people have different opinions. By anticipating obstacles, I, as a leader, can plan with different possible options, which could allow me to take enough time in the first place to make precise and accurate decisions instead of being spontaneous. So if something unexpected happens, we have backup plans that would be the second best for the team.
Two characteristics that I would like to strengthen are staying positive and time management. As mentioned above, I tend to think about the negative side many times and worry ahead of time too much, which is unnecessary. Staying positive would lead to a healthy mentality and ultimately focus more on the tasks that I am working on at that time. “Positive people have more energy and are more self-confident and hopeful. Because of this they tend to set higher goals and expend more effort in order to reach their goals” (Cabrera & Gladis, 2013). Time management is one of the critical components of nursing. When I start my shift, I tend to think and worry too much about the tasks that need to be done. Instead of rushing at the beginning of the shift, trying to finish everything ahead of time, prioritizing and spacing out my “to-do’s” would cause me less stress and increase productivity.
 
Cabrera, B., & Gladis, S. (2013). How positivity leads to success. Association for Talent Development. https://www.td.org/insights/how-positivity-leads-to-success
Rath, T. (2007). Strengths Finder 2.0 – with Access Code.
Umoh, R. (2017). Why you should be highly optimistic if you want to be successful. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/05/why-should-you-be-highly-optimistic-if-you-want-to-be-successful.html
 
 

Gallup Analytics and Reporting.pdf

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Collapse SubdiscussionMorayo Oloidi

Morayo Oloidi
Dec 28, 2022Dec 28, 2022 at 2:15am

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Main Post
Leadership Profile
Leaders exhibit behaviors that affect an organization via the influence, culture developed, and engagement they create within the team (Marshall & Broome, 2021). The Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment helps determine an individual’s leadership skill set. The evaluation also suggests ways to maximize an individual’s potential for leadership and the person’s top leadership traits (Rath, 2007). The results from my assessment showed that my skills are focused on making connections and valuing information. The top five strength themes that I have are connectedness, adaptability, context, arranger, and input.
Strengthening Leadership Values
             The core values of honesty and passion are the ones I would like to improve upon if I take on a leadership role again in the future. As the assessment has shown, I value the connections I establish with everyone I encounter. Leadership is a work of passion that improves an individual’s consistency in their development and the development of others (Antonacopoulou & Bento, 2018). Strengthening the desire to lead and help others while being honest about my weaknesses and giving feedback to those I work with will enable me to be the leader I want to be. Improving the two core values mentioned above will aid me in forming genuine relationships and working with people better to achieve mutual goals.
Developing Leadership Strengths
A strength that I would like to develop further is my connectedness. Believing that things happen for a good reason and that everything is connected in a way will help me open my mind more and understand the things that happen in my life and at work. Further development of my connectedness trait will allow me to steer through challenging moments, search for ways to improve, adapt, and see both sides of a  situation, whether it may be positive or negative. Another strength I would like to improve is being an arranger. When I worked as a nurse supervisor in a different facility about a year ago, I have always encountered complex situations, patient care, or administrative issues that needed my attention. Having the arranger trait helps me navigate multiple things happening simultaneously and go out of the set approach to a more effective way of solving things. As a leader, I always see efficiency as one of my top priorities, and I like thinking of new ways to approach things.
Improving Leadership Characteristics
As for the characteristics, I would like to improve the trait of being an includer. An includer promotes a healthy working environment by providing employees the feeling that they belong with everyone else and boosts their morale. In addition to feeling their value in the team, team members with a high morale and empowerment drive internal motivation and increase work engagement (Tuin et al., 2021). Another characteristic I would like to enhance is being a learner, as I believe there is much more to leadership than just building relationships and guiding staff. A learner’s approach to leadership prioritizes learning from the successes and failures they encounter, breaking down the information, and learning from it. It results in leaders acquiring humility and resilience in any situation they encounter (Antonacopoulou & Bento, 2018).
Reflection and Lessons Learned
Leadership and developing a leader’s qualities are crucial to the individual and the organization. After reviewing scholarly literature and doing the CliftonStrengths Assessment, it opened my mind to the idea of being a servant leader. I have learned that servant leaders focus primarily on their followers instead of focusing on the mission first. Servant leaders empower their followers and the abilities of the individuals they work with, helping them succeed and drive the team towards a set goal (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). A team’s success in any endeavor they take part in depends on the team’s building blocks and teamwork.
 
References
Antonacopoulou, E., & Bento, R. F. (2018). From laurels to learners: Leadership with virtue. Journal of Management Development, 37(8), 624–633. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmd-12-2016-0269Links to an external site.
Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), 261–269. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Franco-Gandolfi/publication/340940468_Leadership_Leadership_Styles_and_Servant_Leadership/links/5ea6a029a6fdccd79457ffa9/Leadership-Leadership-Styles-and-Servant-Leadership.pdfLinks to an external site.
Marshall, E. S., & Broome, M. E. (2021). Frameworks for becoming a transformational leader. In E. S. Marshall & M. E. Broome (Eds.), Transformational Leadership in nurs