The Power of Strengths
It is through our talents and strengths that we tap into our greatest potential for success.
Do you ever wonder why you make certain choices?
Why you do what you do?
Why you like certain things?
Why you are better at some things than others?
There’s a reason. It’s your talents.
Gallup has investigated the nature of human talents and strengths for over 50 years. These investigations have resulted in the CliftonStrengths, an online assessment of individual talent that identifies areas in which a person has the greatest potential for building strengths. More than 12 million people have taken Gallup’s CliftonStrengths assessment.
While continuing to learn more about strengths, Gallup researchers have also examined decades of data on the topics of individual performance and personal development. Gallup has studied more than 1 million work teams, conducted tens of thousands of individual interviews and coached tens of thousands of executives, leaders, managers and individual contributors.
All of this research shows that the key to success is to fully understand how to apply your greatest talents and strengths in your everyday life.
People Who Focus on Using Their Strengths …
are three times more likely to report
having an excellent quality of life
are six times more likely to
be engaged in their jobs
Teams that focus on strengths every day
have 12.5% greater productivity.
When people have an opportunity to use
their greatest talents and strengths, they …
- experience positive energy
- are more likely to achieve their goals
- are more confident
- perform better at work
- are more engaged at work
- experience less stress
Our greatest talents do more than make us unique individuals.
They also serve as our best opportunities for excellence.
Applying Strengths
When people know their talents and are able to use them, they report a higher quality of life than those who don’t
know or don’t use their talents.
Unfortunately, people often take their most powerful talents and strengths for granted, and many are not fully
aware of them.
The ways in which you most naturally think, feel and behave as a unique individual are such a dominant part of
you that they are always there — everywhere you go and in everything you do. But because your greatest talents
are such a natural part of you, they might be harder for you to pinpoint than they are for others. Knowing your
own dominant talents and strengths and those of others is an easy way to improve your own self-awareness and
understand others.
Once familiar with your talents and strengths, you can apply them every day by:
- consistently using those behaviors that improve performance in your work and personal life
- maximizing strengths by offsetting weaknesses
- enhancing how you build partnerships and work in teams
Gallup research has proven that the best opportunity for people to grow and develop — and net the greatest return
on investment — is to identify the ways in which they most naturally think, feel and behave, and then build on those
talents to create strengths: the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance.