Description
Based on two pdf report about strength assessment. Follow the prompt, answer each question.
Part 1 – Self Reflection. In what ways was your report surprising to you? Before you completed the report, what would you have said was your greatest strength – is this similar to or different from those described in the report? Is there one or more strength that you did not expect to see used to describe you? Now think about your top strength. Provide a short vignette describing a workplace interaction that you have experienced where this particular strength would have been visible to someone observing this interaction. (5 points)
Part II – Leveraging Strengths. Imagine if everyone read your strengths report before they met you! They would quickly see your value and want to work with you. Our strengths are what we bring to the team. Think about specific roles that you can take on teams. What roles will you be especially good at? What are some of the ways these strengths will help you as you lead collaboratively in organizations? In class we have talked about three aspects of collaborative leadership, each of which focuses on one aspect needed to build winning teams: team affect (motivation), team cognition (shared understanding), and team integration processes (communication). How do your strengths relate to each of these aspects of collaboration? Where are you a natural leader? (5 points)
Part III – Circumventing Derailers. Some very interesting research on “high potentials” shows these strengths are also very often the source of “derailment.” For example, consider the strength, positivity. Here is an excerpt from the description:
“You find ways to make everything more exciting and more vital. Some cynics may reject your energy, but you are rarely dragged down. Your Positivity won’t allow it. Somehow you can’t quite escape your conviction that it is good to be alive, that work can be fun, and that no matter what the setbacks, one must never lose one’s sense of humor.”
Positivity is undoubtedly a leadership strength in many ways, but imagine the day to day energy drain for someone who matches this description. Managing stress may be one potential derailer for someone high in positivity. Another example of a derailer that could result from positivity relates to providing feedback. Highly positive leaders may find it difficult to deliver concrete, specific, and negative feedback. As a final example, positive leaders may be slow to recognize failures. They may persist too long with a decision that is ultimately not good for the organization. These are three examples of how the positivity strength could ultimately be a derailer.
Think hard about all of your strengths, and develop a list of 5 potential leadership derailers that could result from these strengths. I suggest starting with a much longer list, and having derailers related to all Explain each one, and how and when it could be a derailer for you. This analysis is perhaps one of the most critical aspects of the paper. (5 points)