LEADERSHIP ST
1.
The experience of reading through the content of Strengths Finder 2.0 and then
performing the assessment was an intriguing one as I could relate to most of the
things said in the part 1 of the book especially when it talks about how people
behave when they are not in their strength zone as I personally went through
exact similar situation when I was working with a firm and had the realisation that
“THIS IS NOT FOR ME’. While reading the book I felt very connected and
engrossed and I had the curiosity to know what lies ahead as I could very much
imagine my own life in my mind while going through the story of Saint Peter that
people spend their life walking the wrong path, headed in the wrong direction.
There are many things that are learned from this exercise like my pool of talents
or areas of strengths, of course, also some of them that I didn’t know of before
but other than that I got to learn that it is always to know work on your strengths
and excel at what you are already good at rather than dwelling on the
weaknesses and keep pushing yourself to achieve little improvement and also
avoiding as much as possible the areas of weakness where the potential of
progress in very less. Through this learning I now have a better insight to what
kind of a person I am and when and how I can play to my strengths.
It has given a definition to my personality and would help me in the future by
following and improving on the talents I have and now have a clear knowledge
about and using them as guidelines for performing my leadership role and also
emphasising a strong care for the blind spots associated with my leadership style.
2.
Summary of my Unique Strengths and my Leadership Strengths
Area My Unique My Leadership
Strengths Strengths
Values 1. Self Respect Maintaining self-respect and not denigrate
someone else’s.
2. Independence Respect each individual’s independent
approach to reach the goal.
MBTI 1. Intuitive I usually base my decisions more on gut
feeling and hunches and proceed with a
risk factor.
2. Extroversion I favour free flow of communication
respecting and learning the ideas from
each team member.
Strengths 1. Positivity My optimism will help the team to focus
Finder on the positive and keep their morale high
and motivated.
2. Command Although I seldom do it but when required
I take charge of the situation and make
decisions.
3. Maximizer I focus on the strengths to grow and excel
accepting the weaknesses and let them
be.
Admired 1. Encouraging / Motivator “Show me what you can do. Surprise me.”
Leader Encourages his team to give their best out
their and make them leaders of their own.
SIR ALEX
FERGUSON
2. Perseverance Made the impossible dream come true.
Winning most number of trophies as a
manager and getting his team at the top.
Examples:
COMMAND
It was the day when we had the inter-college soccer match at the university level
in 2012. It was the quarter final round and my team was a goal down. Even
though I was the captain of the team but I never really made decisions during the
half-time as there were people present in the team who had more experience
than me, and while they were speaking I decided to step in and take charge of the
situation by stopping the guy speaking in between and address my team, who had
their heads down as they were baffled and felt disheartened with their
performance. I didn’t talk about any strategy like the other guys but just talked to
them with compassion and showed them a mirror, a true reflection of how much
capable those guys were and what they can do on the field. Basically what I did
was I gave them a morale booster and it worked. The team that lacked confidence
in the first half appeared motivated, had the command over the game in the
second half, created chances more than the opposite team but may be the luck
was not on our side and even with the chances created we couldn’t score.
Although we were not victorious that day, but we lost with dignity and had our
heads held high as we gave it our all out there and were happy with the way we
performed.
CONTEXT
While working on a group project in school we were given a task which I had a
little knowledge about as to how it was to be done as a friend of mine did the
same thing in another school. My teammates were trying to figure out the way to
do it n the decision reached as to how they were going to do it was the same as
my other friend. AND IT WAS WRONG! As his teacher didn't accept the way it was
done and they had to do it all again. Suddenly I remembered this and told my
team about it and we agreed to do it with a different approach. Hence playing to
my strength of context, I learned from the past and directed my team to the right
way.
3.
MY LEADERSHIP CREDO
AS A LEADER, I…….
Believe that self respect of a person is of utmost importance and believe in
respecting the beliefs, views and thoughts of each individual and avoid
denigration towards anyone.
Believe that success is achieved when a person works in an area of strength
and by letting people work where believe they can perform to their maximum
capacity.
Believe in maintaining an optimistic view through difficult situations to keep
them motivated and keep their morale high.
Will maintain a free flow of communication as it is the most integral
component to teamwork and respect and value the ideas and inputs of each
member.
4.
Based on the exercises done the 3 main leadership strengths that I could relate
myself to most are
1. Positivity
2. Maximizer
3. Self Respect
because positivity and maximizer strengths go hand in hand and they form a big
part of my personality. Without keeping an optimistic outlook, a person cannot
focus solely on the strengths and would have the tendency to dwell on the
weaknesses and not work in their area of strength. As for self respect, it is
important that a person maintains his dignity and respects the dignity of each
individual on his team and I strongly follow this belief.
Now that I know my areas of strength and the talents where I have the potential
to develop, I will focus on these talents to develop my leadership style by giving
more value to the positive aspects of a situation and moving forward, playing to
my strengths and letting my team do the same simultaneously respecting the
ideas of my team members and refrain from derogatory remarks so as to respect
them as individuals. My main focus will be to enhance the person I already am
and will not try to be someone I am not.
VISION STATEMENT
5 years down the line I would like to see myself in sports either as a professional
or working in areas related to it like marketing or advertising, working with the big
names in sports like Nike, Adidas etc. I want to be a leader who leads his team by
learning from past experiences, respecting the team members, focusing on the
betterment of strengths rather emphasizing on the weaknesses, become a
motivational force for the team to build their strengths on, creating an
atmosphere of belonging, maximizing the strength of the team by putting them to
work in their areas of strength, maintaining a non-hierarchical flow of
communication so that everyone gets a chance to be heard and understood and
keeping an optimistic approach and imparting the same to the team members to
keep them going with their morale high. With my strength pool of maximizer,
positivity, command, focus, context and many other that I might discover later on
in my life, I am hopeful that I will be able to fulfil this vision.
