One of the activities my HONR 201 class used to drive discussion about leadership was the StrengthsFinder Assessment. This activity fits the development level of leadership. My assessment results informed me that my current top 5 leadership strengths are intellection, harmony, restorative, empathy, and deliberative. At first, I had doubts about the idea of intellection and restorative being strengths of mine. However, I was able to think of real-life scenarios where I’ve seen these traits appear in myself after taking the time to reflect. Out of all these strengths, I believe that deliberative is the most accurate and applicable to myself. As someone who deals with anxiety, I’m conscientious and careful about almost everything that I do in life. I always try to prepare for everything that could go wrong in a situation, weighing different possibilities and then going forward based on what I anticipate. As seen in the signature themes report, I also usually require a period of time to think something through before making a decision, and I falter when urged to make a sudden choice. I view this as one of my biggest weaknesses, and it’s something that I would like to improve.  Although I’m proud of my attention to detail, I’m aware of just how incredibly time consuming it is.

 

While the test said that empathy is one of my strengths, I don't necessarily think of myself as an empathetic person, as I know that I can be quick to judge. Despite this, I found myself agreeing with the statements written in the empathy section of my report. This is especially true for the sentence, “You do not necessarily condone the choices each person makes, but you do understand.” For example, my friend group recently got into a fight in which Friend A completely cut Friend B out of her life, saying that she hated her. I knew the story behind why Friend A did this, and I completely respected her decision because their relationship had been toxic for a long time. Friend B became extremely depressed and furious, and felt that she could no longer trust her friends. Although I believed that Friend B deserved it, I still understood why the situation affected her in such a deeply emotional way. Despite our differences, I tried to check in with her and see how she was coping. This situation was also interconnected with harmony, as I always attempted to find things that we could agree on and to steer away from yelling and name calling when tension was high. I was also skeptical of intellection as one of my strengths, as I don’t think of myself as someone who likes thinking or mental activity. However, the more I thought about it, I realized that my level of enjoyment depends on the subject matter. I dislike reflecting on academic topics such as math and science, but I find myself very engrossed in subjects like history, art, music, and psychology. I felt a connection with the statement, “In a sense you are your own best companion, as you pose yourself questions and try out answers on yourself to see how they sound...Wherever it leads you, this mental hum is one of the constants of your life.” This resonated with me because I’m extremely prone to daydreaming. I do it so much that I often don’t realize how much time it takes up. Daydreaming can be a great source of creativity for brainstorming ideas, and it feeds into my restorative side, but I also know that it can distract me from other obligations. Before analyzing my StrengthsFinder results, it wouldn’t have occurred to me that daydreaming could be a form of reflection. I suspect that this is because I typically associate reflections with academic topics. Despite how I partially disagreed with the test at the beginning, I was able to feel more of a genuine relation with my results after thinking of different experiences that I’ve had. I believe that a large part of my thinking process involves sorting things into categories of “school” and “not school.” This can lead to me focusing on only one or the other, sometimes preventing me from realizing that the two can intersect. I think it would serve me well to remember that something can still be pleasurable even if it’s academic.

 

With all these factors in mind, I try to remind myself of the results of my StrengthsFinder assessment every so often, especially in situations where I’m expected to be a leader. This tends to help with my own self-esteem, as I didn’t use to believe that I had many strengths as a leader. Some of my top 5 leadership strengths, such as deliberative and intellection, resemble qualities of my personality that I have always considered to be weak points. Imagining myself using these characteristics to enhance the way I lead and function in group settings, and then actually implementing them helps facilitate self-confidence. A major reason why I didn't usually picture myself as a leader is because I lacked stereotypical leadership qualities, such as being assertive, social, or extremely motivated. Instead of focusing too much on traits that I don't and might never have, it’s empowering to think about how I can strengthen the ones that I do have. In my leadership experiences since taking the test, I've used my assessment results to center on ways that I can adjust my leadership strengths according to each situation, and to consider how I could interact with various team members who may have different and/or similar strengths from me. Many of these attributes are components of myself that I’ve considered to be weaknesses of mine and examining them through different viewpoints has allowed me to alter my negative thinking patterns, instead thinking of how these strengths have made a positive contribution to my life. Going forward, I’m excited to enhance my strengths using a confident outlook. I’m hoping that this will assist in creating confidence in myself about my ability and capacity to function as a leader while I participate in my job and student organizations.

 

Attached below are the results of my StrengthsFinder assessment.