Managing with Strength
Meet Amy.
Amy is a manager of a remote team within a large organization. While her team is small, they are responsible for producing a substantial number of deliverables on strict deadlines.
How has this team navigated the disruptions of a global pandemic, a change in leadership, and significant turnover among staff, and still managed to form a cohesive team that meets deadlines and produces with excellence?
They play to their strengths. And that begins with their manager.
I’ve had the privilege of coaching Amy a few times along her journey, particularly as she moved into a larger managerial role with this team. She was familiar with the CliftonStrengths assessment, so that seemed a natural jumping off point for our coaching work together.
Through our work together, Amy dug into the CliftonStrengths Full 34 Report plus the CliftonStrengths for Managers report. Those two reports, combined with coaching conversations, helped her to step into her expanded role with authenticity and awareness. She has learned to leverage her talents in more effective ways and has intentionally leaned into her strengths to lead this team effectively.
I recently interviewed Amy to capture her thoughts about the benefits she’s found in the CliftonStrengths assessment and in coaching. Read on for some paraphrased highlights of the conversation, but I hope you’ll watch the interview to really hear Amy’s full story in her own words.
The Full 34 Report
I had known my top 5 talents for a while, but the Full 34 report really helped me to have a better understanding of the context of those top five. I started to see more nuance in my strengths and to see not only how they individually contribute to the ways that I think, operate, and communicate, but also how they work together as I build relationships and prioritize my work.
The CliftonStrengths for Managers Report
The Manager's report was so helpful because it moved beyond just how I think about my strengths and how I operate within those, but how those strengths impact other people. It helped me understand not just how I operate but how the way that I operate impacts the team and the people I manage - both positively and negatively.
A Real-Life Example
My top strength is Strategic and it was good for me to learn that not everyone immediately thinks of three different ways to solve a problem! That is such a natural function for how I work and how I approach challenges and opportunities.
I remember learning to my astonishment that not everybody walks around with those kinds of ideas in their head. The most impactful part of the Manager's report was that it said that while offering all these ideas can give others confidence because I don't regularly say “oh, I don't know what to do,” a potential downside is that I can overwhelm people with too many options.
I’ve learned to be very intentional about making that shift from when I’m talking with a team member about a new project or assignment. I’ve started taking a step back to give them the opportunity to have input because the way that I would do it isn't the only way for it to be done. That approach still honors my Strategic theme because I truly believe that my ways are not the only ways to do it. Instead, I’ve started saying, “Here's what done looks like…” and giving them the opportunity to create their own pathway there. I’ll also let them know that if they want to brainstorm about some ways to do the project, I’m happy to help.
Leading in Weaker Domains
If you look at my top 10 strengths, I have zero strengths in the Executing domain. But I work in a leadership position in a deadline-driven industry and we get lots of things done. The Full 34 report gave me the opportunity to consider how I get things done without “purple-coded themes.”
For me, it is rooted in relationships. I have a lot of Influencing and Relationship Building themes near the top of my report. I have Communication, WOO, Positivity, Relator, and Connectedness; those help me to really lean into relationships and empower my team to execute with confidence. My Strategic Thinking themes help me see the systems and all the moving parts, and they help me to keep projects and other tasks moving.
It can be discouraging if you just look at your top five and you say, “Oh, I don't have any of these” (e.g. particular domain). And so I think that Full 34 Report and really understanding those top 10 strengths just gave a richer interpretation of me and how I operate. It’s helped me recognize the multiple ways that the different strengths can work together.
The Pain Point that Led to Coaching
The timing of when I got the promotion within my company was really interesting. It was in the midst of the COVID pandemic, and we were starting as a company to bring people back into the office. Then we switched to permanent work from home, so workflow was a little bit up in the air.
During COVID, we had some turnovers on our staff, either through attrition or people who just moved on to other positions. We're a small team, so just one person leaving can be disruptive, but we'd had multiple people leave. And then there was my promotion on top of that.
We also work in an industry that was very much disrupted by COVID and we were trying to figure out how to regain footing within the industry.
So our team had disruption. Our company was in flux. Our market was changing. I knew that the last thing that my team needed with all of those other transitions happening was to have a really disruptive transition in leadership.
I was stepping into a role that I was familiar with, but I have a very different personality and style than the person who had been in the role previously.
So that was part of what brought me back to coaching. We had done some coaching previously which had helped me grow in self-awareness, and now I was looking to use those strengths in a slightly different context and was very aware of the potential impact to the people around me.
The Results
One of the things that happened as a result of that coaching work is that we had a very smooth transition as a team. Having the additional awareness, that sense of self that came from having a better understanding of my strengths and how they operate, especially within teams and within systems really helped to make that a very smooth and easy transition.
Coaching offered me a different perspective on my strengths that’s led me to enter situations and think for myself, “I'm thinking this way, what maybe am I going to miss?”
It also gave me some language and some tools to be able to explain some of my thinking and say, “Here's how I'm thinking about this…” It’s helped us avoid some of the miscommunication that can happen with a change of personnel and personality.
Having some of the language and awareness that came out of both the strengths, but especially that coaching really helped us move through a very large period of change with far less friction.
Advice for Others
I would say two things:
#1: CliftonStrengths is a really valuable tool and asset. AND, it's not the be all, end all. It doesn't replace having conversations. It doesn't replace asking people how they would approach situations.
It gives some additional perspective to be aware of: here's where this is going to be really useful, and here's where this might be a pitfall.
However, while the assessment doesn't replace actually having conversations, it can make those conversations richer and more directed.
#2: It's really easy to go on the Gallup website and to get the report and to read the report. But it’s the coaching relationship that brings greater perspective and more ideas. The coaching conversations provide that deeper understanding to how to name, claim, and aim your strengths, and how to put all those pieces together.
Coaching allows for a valuable outside perspective that helps me recognize something I didn't think of, or maybe see how what I think is a liability is really functioning as an asset.
So that coaching relationship paired with the reports really is where I have been able to benefit and really grow as a person, as a leader, as a manager.
Wrapping Up
What more can I say? It was a privilege to work with Amy (and later, her team!) along this journey of expanding self-awareness and increasing leadership effectiveness. Be sure to watch the full interview to get a deeper understanding of how strengths and coaching have empowered Amy and her team.
If you’re facing a challenge like Amy was, know that I’d be just as delighted to come alongside you for a season as you navigate the challenges of leadership. Email me if you’d like to have a conversation about that!
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