Strength based leadership, how to explore your strengths and deal with your weaknesses in a way that it will cost you less energy.

Two young fish are swimming in the sea happily, an elderly fish passes by and says: how is the water boys?
The boys look at each other and say: what's water?

What is right in front of you, you usually can't clearly see. Annoyingly, it's our weaknesses we are well aware off, because more than once another person happily addresses our shortcomings. It is often our strengths that we are most oblivious of. We think that what we are good at and comes naturally is normal and also easy for others. This is quite unfortunate, as contiously using your strengths gives a person confidence, energy, less stress, and is more likely to achieve their goals, which results in being happier at work.

Here is an excersize to become aware of your strenghts. There are 4 quadrants you need to fill in:

1. what gives you energy and you are good at? It is a difficult question, and maybe you want to go on to number 2,3,and 4 first as they are easier. As in the story above, you need to get out of the water, to realise what water is.
   2)what are you good at, but costs you energy? these are usually learned behaviours. It might even have been that it used to be a weakness. This can also vary in time.
2. Things that give you energy, but you are not very good at or you want to improve (The first thing usually that comes to mind are sports, learning language, singing, traveling etc..., but also think about skills like writing/storytelling)
3. Things you are bad at and you really dislike doing ( this list usually is easy to make)

What should you do per quadrant?

To help with finding words to relate to, here is a list:
Being: Authenticity, Centred, Courage, Humility, Legacy, Mission, Moral Compass, Self-awareness, Service, Unconditionally, Curiosity, Gratitude
Communicating: Listener, narrator,Scribe,Spotlight,Counter,Explainer, Feedback, Humour
Motivating:Action, Adventure, Bounce back, Catalyst,Change,Competative,Drive,Efficiancy, Efficacy,Growth, Improve
Relation:Compassion, Connector, Enabler, Equality, Build self esteem, Empathic/ Emotional awareness, Individualisation,Persuasion, Relationship builder, Relationship deepner.
Thinking: Adherence to processes, Creativity, Detail, Innovation, Decision maker, Planner, Preventing, Optimism, Organise, Resolver, Strategic, Time controller, Restructure

If you have any questions, I’m happy to help.

If you like what I write, I would very much like to be considered for your upvote and a re-steem.