Unleash Leadership and Team Potential with Strengths

Why Strengths?

Recall a time when someone commended you on one of your strengths. What did you feel? What did it motivate you to do? How did it affect your relationship with that person?

If it encouraged you to do even better the next time, and strengthened your relationship with the giver of the feedback, you’re in good company!

According to a study by the Corporate Leadership Council involving 19,187 employees across 29 countries, focusing on their performance strengths was linked to a 36.4% improvement in their performance while a focus on their performance weaknesses was linked to a 26.8% declined in performance.

According to research by the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology in the UK, by building on strengths, an organisation unleashes untapped talent, attracts and retains more of the people it needs, improves individual performance, builds employee engagement, improves openness to change and the ability to deal with change, and contributes to the happiness and fulfilment of employees.

What are you likely to do differently if you were a strengths-based leader?
You would know your own strengths and weaknesses and be appropriately open with your weaknesses. You would use more or less of a strength, depending on the context. You would know the strengths and weaknesses of your team, and delegate wisely based on who is best suited to deliver on various tasks. You would give and receive positive feedback. You would recognise your role as a “climate engineer”, through celebrating what’s working and addressing what’s not. (Source: Alex Linley, author of “Average to A+”.)

What are you likely to do differently if you were part of a strengths-based team?
You would form complementary working partnerships and align your collective strengths to your goals.

Why Realise2 and VIA?
An intervention can only be useful if the diagnosis is accurate.
Realise2 represents the state-of the science in strengths assessment and development. It was developed to directly address some of the critiques of other strengths approaches. It tells you the strengths you use and don’t use as much, as well as what de-energises you. It leans towards workplace strengths.

The VIA Character Survey focuses on character strengths such as wisdom, fairness and hope.
Both tools help us holistically analyse different strengths in you and your team.

When is it useful?

• Transforming leadership style to be more positive
• Stepping into a new leadership role and seeking to understand your team better
• Enhancing teamwork
• Doing a SWOT analysis
• Assessing and managing risk
• Managing change

What’s next?

• Check out sample reports for individuals and teams from Realise2 and the VIA Pro sample report.
• Take the Realise2 survey and engage us to do a debrief for you so that you can better determine if you’d like to bring a strengths-based approach to your organisation.