A strengths-based approach to leadership culture is characterised by everyone focussing on their strengths and continual learning and, through this, on the improvement of engagement, teamwork and success.
Supporting leaders to understand and focus on their strengths rather than developing ‘strong’ weaknesses makes perfect sense and is aligned ideologically to my values, focuses on pragmatism, and encourages leaders to think ‘leadership teams’, not heroic, charismatic leadership or worse autocratic ‘just do it’.
Gallup created a diagnostic which is available via the book Strengths-Based Leadership readily available online.
People perform best when working to their strengths and teams perform best when the team itself has a balanced, complementary set of strengths. Gallup conducted over 20,000 in-depth interviews, studied over one million work teams, considered over 50 years of data on the world’s most admired leaders, and studied over 10,000 followers for insights into leaders.
Gallup research has developed four domains of leadership strength:
- Executing: making things happen
- Influencing: selling ideas inside and out of the organisation
- Relationship Building: being the glue that holds teams together
- Strategic Thinking: focusing on the big picture and the future
Given that my thinking comes from the philosophical standpoint that a strengths-based approach delivers the best results, this is an appropriate and complementary diagnostic which can support your personal development as a leader.