Develop Patterns for Achievement
How do my strengths land?
While physical fitness often influences superficial judgments, mental and emotional fitness shapes deeper, longer-lasting impressions. By understanding how our strengths are perceived, we can fine-tune how we use them, fostering stronger connections and positive treatment from others. This self-awareness not only enhances our relationships but also empowers us to grow into the best versions of ourselves.
Physical fitness is often visible to others—it’s reflected in posture, energy levels, and physical appearance. However, mental and emotional fitness is less outwardly visible and equally impactful. It’s reflected in how we communicate, handle stress, and navigate relationships. These traits significantly affect how others experience us and, ultimately, how they treat us. For example:
- If you display emotional resilience during a crisis, others may see you as a dependable leader.
- If you struggle with stress visibly, they may perceive you as overwhelmed or unreliable, even if you’re doing your best.
Why We Must Consider How Our Strengths Land on Others
Our mental and emotional strengths—such as empathy, optimism, or decisiveness—don’t exist in isolation. Their effectiveness depends on how they are perceived and received by others. For instance:
- Empathy can strengthen relationships, but if expressed in a way that seems intrusive, it may make others uncomfortable.
- Confidence can inspire trust, but if it comes across as arrogance, it may alienate people.
Considering how our strengths “land” on others means being mindful of their perceptions, needs, and boundaries. This awareness helps us adapt our approach to ensure our strengths are seen as assets rather than potential liabilities. Our strengths, while inherently positive, can have varying effects based on how they are expressed and perceived. Here’s why this awareness is important and how strengths can both empower and disempower others:
Our strengths are powerful tools that shape how we interact with the world, but their impact depends on how they are perceived and experienced by others. Being aware of this impact is crucial for fostering effective relationships, building trust, and creating positive outcomes in both personal and professional settings. Here’s why:
Strengths Can Be Double-Edged Swords
A strength in one context can become a weakness in another if not used thoughtfully. For example:
- Self-Assurance can inspire others but may come across as arrogance if overused.
- Empathy can build deep connections but may feel overwhelming if it leads to over-involvement in others’ issues.
Awareness helps us strike the right balance, ensuring our strengths serve their intended purpose without unintended negative effects.
People Perceive Actions Differently
Each person has unique perspectives, experiences, and sensitivities. A strength that feels positive to you might be misinterpreted by someone else. For example:
Being direct and assertive might seem efficient to you but could feel harsh to someone who values gentler communication.
Understanding how your strengths land on others allows you to adjust your approach, creating alignment and reducing potential friction.
Awareness Enhances Personal Growth
Self-awareness enables you to use your strengths more intentionally, refining how you apply them in different situations. It also fosters humility and adaptability, key traits for personal and professional development.
How to Increase Awareness
- Seek Feedback: Ask colleagues, friends, or family how your actions and strengths affect them.
- Reflect Regularly: Consider how others responded to your behaviour in specific situations.
- Adapt Your Approach: Use feedback and observation to tailor your strengths to different contexts.
Being aware of the impact of your strengths on others ensures they are received positively and effectively. This awareness fosters stronger relationships, better collaboration, and a more balanced approach to leveraging your natural talents. It’s not just about having strengths but about using them in a way that brings out the best in both yourself and those around you.
When you understand how your strengths affect others, you can foster trust and collaboration. It ensures your strengths are seen as assets rather than liabilities in personal or professional interactions.
Strengths Influence Relationships and Collaboration
How others experience your strengths affects how they respond to you.
If your strategic thinking is perceived as dismissive of others’ ideas, it can hinder collaboration.
If your positivity feels genuine and supportive, it can strengthen teamwork and morale.
By being mindful, you ensure your strengths enhance relationships rather than unintentionally causing strain.
Reduce Misunderstandings:
Misaligned perceptions of strengths can lead to conflicts. For instance:
Someone with “Activator” might seem impatient to others who prefer a more deliberate pace.
Awareness helps bridge gaps and align intentions with others’ experiences.
Teams thrive when members’ strengths complement each other. Each individual brings unique talents that, when aligned and understood, create synergy and amplify collective success. However, when strengths are misunderstood or misapplied, they can lead to miscommunication, friction, and inefficiencies. Recognising how your strengths interact with others’ is key to fostering a cohesive and high-performing team.
When strengths are not understood or valued, they can inadvertently cause tension. For example:
- A person with Command might naturally take charge during discussions, which could be perceived as overbearing by someone with Harmony, who values consensus.
- Someone with Adaptability may thrive in changing circumstances, but their flexibility could seem indecisive to a colleague with Focus, who prefers clear direction and stability.
Without awareness, these differences might feel like obstacles. With understanding, they become opportunities for collaboration.
Optimising Collaboration Through Strength Awareness
Recognising how your strengths interact with those of others enables you to adapt your behaviour and maximise team dynamics. Here’s how:
Communicate Strengths Clearly: Share your strengths and how they manifest in your work. For instance, if you have Ideation, explain that you thrive on brainstorming and generating creative solutions.
Example: “I love coming up with innovative ideas, so feel free to let me know if you’re stuck and need fresh perspectives!”
Value Others’ Contributions: Actively recognise and respect the strengths others bring to the table.
Example: If a teammate has Deliberative, acknowledge their thoughtful and cautious approach as essential for risk management, even if it contrasts with your Activator strength.
Bridge Potential Gaps: Pair strengths strategically to address weaknesses or challenges.
Example: A team member with Empathy can help mediate conflicts in a group where Competition drives performance but sometimes leads to tension.
Adapt to the Team Dynamic: Modify how you use your strengths based on the situation and the needs of the group.
Example: If you have Achiever, balance your drive for productivity with understanding that someone with Connectedness may focus on fostering relationships as part of the process.
Practical Example of Strength Synergy
Imagine a project team tasked with launching a new product:
- Strategic team member creates the roadmap.
- Achiever ensures milestones are met on schedule.
- Woo engages stakeholders and builds excitement for the product.
- Restorative resolves any unforeseen issues.
When each member’s contributions are understood and valued, the team operates like a well-oiled machine. Without this understanding, there might be misalignment—for instance, the Achiever feeling frustrated by delays caused by unexpected problem-solving from the Restorative member.
Recognising how your strengths interact with others’ helps reduce friction, enhance collaboration, and create a more dynamic and productive environment.
How Strengths Empower Others
When used effectively, strengths can uplift and energise those around you. For example:
“Positivity” can boost morale and create an optimistic environment.
“Empathy” can make others feel understood and valued.
When you use your strengths to highlight others’ contributions, they feel more confident and capable. For example:
“Developer” and “Maximiser” can empower others by focusing on their growth and potential.
Using your strengths to connect and align others’ efforts creates a unified, empowering dynamic. For example:
“Includer” and “Relator” encourage teamwork and make others feel part of a shared purpose.
People feel empowered when your strengths guide them toward clarity and success. For example:
“Strategic” and “Arranger” can help others navigate challenges effectively.
How Strengths Disempower Others
Overusing strengths can have a negative impact and can leave others feeling overwhelmed and inadequate. For example:
“Command” might come across as domineering.
“Achiever” might set an unsustainable pace for others.
Focusing too much on your own strengths might unintentionally sideline others. For example:
“Ideation” might dominate brainstorming sessions, making others hesitant to share.
“Strategic” may identify the destination without explaining the path, leaving others lost and unsure of how to get there.
When you consistently take charge of certain responsibilities because of your natural abilities, others may defer to you rather than stepping up themselves. For example:
“Responsibility” may habitually take on more work to ensure it’s done right. Over time, this can lead to team members relying on them to handle tasks they are capable of completing.
“Restorative” may always be the one to solve problems, leaving teammates less engaged in problem-solving processes.
This happens when the way we use our strengths conflicts with others’ preferences, expectations, or communication styles, causing misunderstanding or tension. Some strengths inherently shape the way we communicate, and these styles may clash with others’ preferences. Similarly, when strengths are overused or misapplied, they can frustrate others who feel overwhelmed or excluded. For example:
“Analytical” might frustrate those seeking emotional support rather than data or logic.
“Activator” may push for quick action, frustrating teammates who need time to analyse details and consider options, like those with Deliberative or Analytical.
How to Ensure Strengths Empower, Not Disempower
Strengths are most impactful when they empower others. By fostering growth, collaboration, trust, and autonomy, you ensure your strengths uplift those around you, creating a more dynamic, balanced, and successful team. When strengths are used with intention and care, they become tools for collective success rather than individual dominance.
Seek Feedback:
Regularly ask others how your strengths are impacting others to gain insight into their perceptions.
Balance Strengths:
Be mindful not to overuse or underuse your strengths. Adjust your approach based on the context and needs of others.
Adapt to Others’ Strengths:
Understand the strengths of those you interact with and find ways to complement them rather than unintentionally clashing.
Focus on Intentionality:
Use your strengths with a clear, positive purpose, ensuring they align with the goals and well-being of others.
Practice Empathy:
Consider how others experience your strengths and adjust to make them feel supported, valued, and empowered.
Now before moving onto the Four Strengths of Execution, remember to complete your weekly Wellbeing Check.
The Four Strengths of Execution
The Four Strengths of Execution is a framework designed to help teams and individuals execute your most important priorities effectively to achieve greater success. These steps are especially useful for addressing the challenge of turning intentions into actionable outcomes in the face of competing priorities.
Remember, back at the Launch Pad we discussed why it’s important to build and develop habits. These four steps direct you toward ensuring you continue to act on your habits to achieve your outcomes. Click here to revisit the Launch Pad.
In the strengths world not everyone likes setting and focusing on goals. We focus on lead measures, outcomes and objectives, and therefore use BAAs or Big Ass Achievements.
In other words, we like to “Raise the BAA (bar)” when focusing on our strengths to achieve the success and happiness we search for.
Focus on the Big Ass Achievement (BAA)
Identify and concentrate on the most crucial outcome – your “Big Ass Achievement” (BAAs) – that will make the greatest impact when achieved. Instead of spreading energy across numerous priorities, focus on a few key objectives to ensure excellence in execution.
Execute on the Lead Measures
Differentiate between lag measures (the results you want to achieve) and lead measures (the activities that drive those results). Focus on lead measures because they are both predictive and controllable, enabling teams to influence outcomes proactively.
Maintain an Engaging Scoreboard
Create a clear and simple scoreboard that tracks progress toward the BAAs. The scoreboard should be easily understandable, motivating you and your team by showing where you stand and encouraging accountability.
Establish a Rhythm of Accountability
Establish a rhythm of regular, frequent check-ins (e.g., weekly meetings) where individuals and team members review their commitments, assess progress toward the BAAs, and make plans to overcome obstacles. These meetings may be with a coach, mentor, or leadership team. This discipline ensures ongoing focus and alignment.
By adhering to these four steps, teams and individuals can align their efforts, maintain focus, and effectively achieve their most critical objectives.
To Do List...
- Reflective Questions
- Activity: Mapping for Success
- Activity: What is My BAA
- List Item
What connections are there between understanding who you are, your innate talents and how you connect with others?
How do you feel when you are recognised and valued for what you do well?
How does how you feel, impact your performance?
How can you use what you have learnt over the past weeks to develop a continuous pattern of performance?
How will you commit to creating a habit for success?
Early in this process you read about mapping for success and identified certain outcomes you wanted to achieve. It’s now time to revisit those outcomes and refine and add to them. Have they changed? Are they more specific? How confident are you that you will achieve them? Answer the following questions using all the tools you have learnt throughout this process.
Use your workbook, download the word or PDF version, or simply write your answers in a journal or diary. You will need five copies if you are downloading the paper version. Remember, you will achieve more success and grow your knowledge and understanding by handwriting your answers. Answer as little or as much detail as you feel worthy.
What would I like to achieve? Why is this important to me? (Determine specific destination, measurability, and timeframe)
How can I measure my progress? Identify points of progress and stay on track – test and measure (Recognise Progress Markers)
Does how you feel, impact your performance? How can you use what you have learnt over the past weeks to develop a continuous pattern of performance? How will you commit to creating a habit for success?
How will I know when I am successful? (Make adjustments and alignments)
What am I focusing on now? (Be resourceful)
What helps me believe in myself? (Celebrate Success)
Use your workbook, download the word or PDF version, or simply write your answers in a journal or diary. You will need five copies if you are downloading the paper version. Remember, you will achieve more success and grow your knowledge and understanding by handwriting your answers. Answer as little or as much detail as you feel worthy.
What Big Ass Achievement will give me fulfilment and happiness and create success in my life?
Why do I want to achieve my BAA?
What two leads measures do I need to set?
Which talent will best connect me to my BAA and why?
How can I use this talent to achieve my BAA?
How have I used this strength successfully in the past?
How will I know I’m applying this talent resourcefully?
What other talents can I combine to achieve my BAA and why?
How will I know I have achieved my BAA?
What will success look like?
What will success sound like?
What will success feel like?
What will happen when I achieve my BAA?
What won’t happen when I achieve my BAA?
What will happen if I don’t achieve my BAA?
What won’t happen if I don’t achieve my BAA?
Congratulations and Thank You!
Well done on completing this section of the coaching program! Your commitment to growth and development is truly inspiring. Take a moment to appreciate the progress you’ve made and the tools you’ve gained along the way.
Remember, the key to lasting success lies in consistently applying what you’ve learned. Continue using these tools daily and work to embed the habits you’ve started building into your routines. Over time, these habits will become second nature, empowering you to achieve even greater results.
Before moving forward, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Please proceed to the next page to complete a brief feedback form. Your input is invaluable in helping us refine the program and ensure it delivers the best possible experience for you and others. Thank you for being a vital part of this journey!