Strengths-based Manager's Guide to Personal Development
- 1. A MANAGER’S GUIDE Using StrengthsFinder for Personal Development
- 2. Managers account for 70% of the variance in employee engagement Actively disengaged employees cost S’pore S$6 billion in lost productivity 9 in 10 people struggle to be effective managers unless developed 13 in 15 employees worldwide are disengaged or actively disengaged at work
- 3. “Empowering managers to focus on their strengths and those of their teams is key in increasing employee engagement. - Victor Seet
- 4. 3 STEP GUIDE TO GROWTH 1. Know and understand your dominant StrengthsFinder themes 2. Take ownership of your talent themes 3. Aim your strengths towards your goals as a manager
- 5. STEP ONE: UNDERSTAND YOUR DOMINANT THEMES AS A MANAGER ➤ Dig into all the resources you can find to help you understand your Top 5 CliftonStrengths themes ➤ Reflect on your usual behaviour, habits, and past experiences ➤ Key Question: can you connect your StrengthsFinder talent themes to your past experiences, patterns of thought, decision-making processes, or habits? Try doing this for each of your Top 5 CliftonStrengths themes.
- 6. STEP TWO: OWN YOUR DOMINANT THEMES AS A MANAGER ➤ Ownership comes when we start to accept and view our StrengthsFinder lenses in a positive way. Ownership drives us to action. ➤ If we dislike our StrengthsFinder themes or are skeptical about them, we won’t be able to aim them toward specific goals we have in our work and personal lives. ➤ Key Question: Can you link your dominant talent themes to an ‘identity’ you can assume at work? How does assuming this identity help build greater ownership in your role as a manager?
- 7. STEP THREE: AIM YOUR DOMINANT THEMES AS A MANAGER ➤ Understand the negative impact that our strengths can have on our team members at work. ➤ Connect our StrengthsFinder themes with specific, actionable goals tied to broader work outcomes. ➤ Key Questions: ➤ In which areas do you tend to impose your thoughts and decisions on your team? ➤ How do your themes tend to manifest in times of stress? ➤ What is your natural leadership style, and how does this relate to your strengths?
- 8. STEP THREE: AIM YOUR DOMINANT THEMES AS A MANAGER ➤ Using the SMART goal framework, can you set a goal for each of your strengths? ➤ For example: ➤ Activator: Connect with 50 new organisations within a year and convert 20% of them into clients ➤ Communication: Share with and influence 2,000 people in Asia to do the StrengthsFinder profiling assessment through Strengths School within a year ➤ Strategic: Get recurring business from 80% of our existing clients within a year
- 9. “A Strengths-Based Manager leading by example will have taken the vital first step in engaging his or her team members. - Victor Seet