1 / 17

Leading With Your Strengths

Leading With Your Strengths. Building Innovative Leadership, Sept. 2008 Cate Walker Hammond Centre for Teaching & Learning . Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership. Model the way Inspire a shared vision Challenge the process Enable others to act Encourage the heart

ash
Download Presentation

Leading With Your Strengths

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Leading With Your Strengths Building Innovative Leadership, Sept. 2008 Cate Walker Hammond Centre for Teaching & Learning

  2. Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership • Model the way • Inspire a shared vision • Challenge the process • Enable others to act • Encourage the heart (Kouzes & Posner, The Leadership Challenge, 2003)

  3. What if, as a Leader, your conversations with colleagues and reports focused on strengths ? Imagine a community where individuals work from their strengths - developing, leveraging, and creating win-win opportunities for both Staff and the College.

  4. Strengths-based Thinking and Application Please watch Marcus Buckingham’s keynote address to the staff at Yahoo (9 min 57) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lNC6--JuoY&feature=related

  5. Are you one of the “Two out of Ten”? Or are you held back by the Three Myths? Myth #1 As you grow, your personality changes Truth: As you grow, you become more of who you already are. While some behaviors may change, your most dominant personality traits will remain the same.

  6. Myth # 2: You will grow the most in your areas of greatest weakness Truth: Fixing weaknesses prevents failure. Our best opportunity to go from “good to great” is by building on our talents.

  7. Myth # 3: A good team member does whatever it takes to help the team Truth: We bring our best to the team when we work from our strengths. Great teams are well rounded, precisely because their team members aren’t!

  8. Gallup Organization • In over 30 years of research into leadership, and top achievers, Gallup has found that top achievers have one thing in common: they build their academic and personal life on their talents • By applying their talents as a foundation for strength development, they achieve excellence, leveraging their strengths to manage weaknesses

  9. Working from your strengths: the six principles of human nature & behavior • You have a group of talents within you • Your greatest talents hold the key to high achievement, success & increasing levels of personal excellence • Becoming aware of your talents builds confidence & provides a basis for achievement

  10. Learning how to develop & apply strengths will improve your levels of accomplishment and satisfaction • Each of your talents can be applied in many areas including relationships, leadership, learning, academics, careers, & service • As you develop & apply strengths, your achievements will increase & you will experience greater & more frequent success

  11. The Strengths Perspective “If you want to know about excellence, you have to study excellence” Don Clifton, the “father of strengths philosophy” • “You start seeing people in terms of who they are…rather than in terms of who they aren’t” Chip Anderson, Co-author of “StrengthsQuest”, and educator

  12. Dynamics of Strengths, Talent Development • Hard to identify our own talents • Perceptions of talents may be influenced by praise, criticism, judgmental relationships • Talents can be developed or ignored • Culture, society, forms, limits, views of individuals talents • Our talents can threaten others

  13. TALENT (non teachable) • A naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling and behavior that can be productively applied • Ways of processing information & interacting with others • Habits, behaviors, attitudes & beliefs A talent is a potential strength

  14. Plus KNOWLEDGE (teachable) - Education, experiences & awareness + SKILL (teachable) - Capacity to perform the steps of an activity, practice ----------------------------------------------------- STRENGTH: The ability to provide consistent, near-perfect performance in a given activity

  15. What would happen if our first conversations with students were about strengths, not deficits? • What if they had an individual plan, applying their strengths in academics, study techniques, class selection, extra curricular activities, & relationships? • StrengthsQuest – Educator Resources https://www.strengthsquest.com/content/25195/Educator-Resources.aspx

  16. Feedback from students at Azusa Pacific School of Education & Behavioral Studies: • Focusing on their talents led them to see themselves differently – as individuals with powerful talents in particular areas • Qualities they had been teased about or criticized for were seen from a different perspective • They saw others differently – in view of their talents

  17. Applied Learning. For next session: • Please complete your online Strengthsquest assessment. Code and web info are in binder. Allow @ 25 minutes of uninterrupted time 2. To receive your “Strengths certificate” please email your top 5 Signature Themes to Cate, by Mon Sept. 22 cate.walker@mohawkcollege.ca 2. Complete exercises: View Marcus Buckingham Youtube link referenced on powerpoint handout. Complete “My Signature Themes …” “Leveraging your talents”, and read articles in binder.

More Related