So this week I took my Strengths Finder test. I have taken different kind of personality tests before but I think this one is by far the most in-depth one, in my opinion. It’s always nice to be able to see what some of your strengths are but it also brings some things that if you do not take it under control or are even aware of, the strengths could become a weakness.

According to the Strength Finders test my top five are:

  • Command
  • Activator
  • Significance
  • Belief
  • Relator

After you take the tests and it gives you your top 5 it gives you an overview of each one of those things and gives you how you apply it as a leader and what you need to watch out for as a leader.

I thought I would share just 3 things I learned that will help me be a better leader.

You probably do better improving things as opposed to starting from scratch. You feel no discomfort imposing your views on others. In some healthy ways, that means you defend those you care about and you speak truth in love when people mess up. That being said, once you’ve told people what to do, you fully expect them to do it and feel like it devalues your leadership when they don’t. Things lean more towards binary in your mind…they’re either right or they’re not.

For me, this is not something that is surprising to me but it’s something I was not able to put into words. So it’s important for me to share this with the team that works with me. My style of leadership is give you all the info you need to make something happen and once our meeting is done, I don’t think about it again until it’s time to make it happen because I fully trust that person to get it done. They can ask for help, but if they don’t ay anything, I don’t bring it up because “they got it”. But if it does not get done, I get upset. I won’t lie to you, I have gotten upset before.

But this is good to know so I can communicate clearly so my projected expectations do not go unsaid. I realized I do this a lot. I am now aware I need to be clear my expectations and let the people whom I get to work with how I operate and me not asking them how they are doing is me not caring, but me trusting them that they got it under control and I would be more than happy to jump in a help if needed.

Other people won’t “get over” stuff as much as you will, or as quickly.

Usually once the conversation is done it’s out of my mind. In my opinion, I think this is good thing because things don’t linger and I am able to move on and get stuff done so we can move forward. I have realized that not everyone is able to do this. There have been times where I have said or done something in a meeting and 3 weeks later it is brought up because it hurt someone’s feelings and I tended to be annoyed because I don’t remember what I said 3 weeks ago in some random meeting but something I said was not taken lightly even though it was a side comment.

This has shown me that in my leadership, my empathy is something I need to work on greatly. I have been reading through Matthew in my quiet times and Jesus was empathetic to the people he encountered. I need to be more like Jesus here.

Work with someone you deeply trust that’s strong in strategic/futuristic. You’re going to be really good at getting people on the bus, but may not as naturally see where the bus is going. You may, depending on your top 10, but not necessarily.

In my head I am really good at thinking ahead. But what I have come to realize is I can see ahead a few steps but not as good as seeing miles down the road. This one was hard for me. I like to think of myself as a visionary. I wear glasses so I should have known better that I couldn’t see that far HA!

I realized that I need people around me who are gifted in areas that are better than I am. Like this said, I can get people on the bus and be strategic in the right here and right now but need people around me who can see the further future. I have an open junior high pastor position on my team and I’m hoping whomever that person will be will be able to fill in my gaps.

 

@justinknowles3