Strengths Coaching: Coaching Which Stretches You, Growth Which Gives You Energy
What are your greatest strengths? What are the strengths you most admire in others? Within your business, or team, whose strengths do you rely on most?
We often don’t think too closely about those traits we admire in others. These characteristics making up someone’s personality are so much a part of that person we may not consider why we rely on Jo for certain tasks or how it is Steve always gets the best from us.
In fact, many of us don’t really understand our own strengths or how we use them, certainly not how we can get the best out of them.
In this article I’m going to tell you about Strengths Coaching, how it can help you, your team and your business. I’ll show you why understanding strengths is so powerful and why so many businesses choose Strengths Coaching to support their people.
Strengths Coaching – Understanding Who You Are
Everyone has strengths. These are underlying qualities which give you energy, you’ll find you use them naturally to support you throughout different areas of your life.
As individuals, these strengths can be so ingrained and instinctively used, that we don’t even realise we’re using them. Using our strengths we are able to perform at our peak, whatever the task, and we don’t necessarily realise how important the thing we’re doing is or how much others wish they could do the same. Maybe creating a business strategy comes naturally to us, because it aligns with our personal strengths – for others who don’t have the same strengths your abilities will really stand out.
Within certain groups, we can find the traits which are natural to us are not appreciated – in fact they may be rejected – meaning we hide them and consider them faults because other’s have taught us to believe that. When others don’t value our strengths we can feel they’re actually weaknesses, but Personal Strengths Coaching turns that view on its head helping us recognise the value in our strengths when we’ve previously been blind to them.
Through Strengths Coaching we can identify our personal strengths, not only how the characteristics manifest themselves but also how they can be used in all sorts of situations.
Because of the positive energy gained from using our strengths, working with them will allow us to perform at our peak. Not only that – using our strengths improves our wellbeing, motivation, problem-solving, self-confidence and even teamwork.
What are these strengths
The Strengthscope tool I use in my coaching, breaks down strengths into four clusters:
- Emotional
- Relational
- Execution
- Thinking
Within these four clusters are a number of areas from which your strengths will be identified; examples of these areas are Self-Confidence, Collaboration, Efficiency and Strategic Mindedness.
Strengthscope considers 24 individual strengths and, through analysis, we’ll identify your ‘Significant 7’ – those 7 strengths which are dominant for you. Whether these strengths are what you expected or a surprise to you, understanding them better will help you discover a better way to work.
So, is it just about me?
Your Strengths
Understanding your strengths will help you be more productive and work in a way which gives you confidence and positive energy.
There may be tasks in your role which you’ve always struggled with – discovering this is because you aren’t strong in Leading, will allow you to explore how you can use your significant strengths of Persuasiveness and Collaboration to achieve the goals in a different way.
Recognising your strengths and gaining energy from that will not only be positive for you, but all those who come into contact with you.
Your Team
None of us are alone… Even those running solo businesses need clients and support, and if you’re at the top of your organisation, how you work with those below you will determine your success.
Strengths Coaching can help teamwork through team coaching. Working together to understand each individuals’ strengths is an incredibly positive experience.
The focus on strengths helps individuals – and their coworkers – to focus on qualities rather than difference. Where difference is seen, this is approached from the perspective of strengths and combining those strengths to fill gaps which have previously gone unfilled.
As a team, you can now recognise each other’s strengths and work more smartly to achieve goals by using them.
Also, our strengths coaching will help the team recognise those areas where there may have been potential for conflict and manage it for a positive result. Where those using different strengths find it difficult to collaborate, a better understanding of how we each work will enable the team to find alternatives which remove the conflict entirely.
And for those who won’t be coached as part of a team, understanding your strengths will still improve your relationships, how to manage them and how to recognise positive collaboration partners.
Your Business
Ensuring your individuals are working with their strengths to achieve peak performance and collaborating effectively as teams will result in better productivity and a more positive workplace across the board.
It’s about the future and it’s about results
This article is intended to give you a high-level understanding of Personal Strengths Coaching and how it can support you and your business; I hope it’s got you intrigued!
Working with individuals and teams, within small businesses or large organisations, I love seeing the difference this work can make to those who undertake it.
If you’d like to read about other’s experiences with Personal Strengths Coaching, you can find them here. Or, if you’d like to find out more about how it works and whether I can help you, I’d love you to Get in Touch.
