Connecting My Strengths to My Leadership Potential

As a student in Dr. Donnie Williams' Honors Supply Chain Colloquium, I have had the privilege to participate in many strength evaluating assignments which have assisted me as a supply chain student. Most recently, we have immersed our focus into the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment results. The CliftonStrengths Assessment analyzes my interpersonal skill potential and allows me to concentrate on improving my weaknesses while still managing to capitalize on my strengths. Within the assessment, I was given my top five out of thirty-four traits, which all fall between four different broad domains. The four domains include: Executing, Influencing, Relationship-Building, and Strategic Thinking. My five skills are relatively spread out amongst the domains, falling under three out of four. My skills tend to be heavily weighted in the Influencing and Relationship-Building domains. Check out my article below to dive into the endeavors of my top five traits, and see how I can develop these skills into a leadership position!

Initial Reaction

My top five traits are: Woo, Communication, Positivity, Individualization, and Ideation. With that being said, I am not surprised by my results. I truly believe it is essential to have an influential personality and actively showcase positivity within the workplace. However, I honestly expected to have at least one of my top five strengths fall under the Executing domain. My heaviest domains were Relationship Building and Influencing, which I believe are super important in a corporate setting today.

How My Strengths Will Relate to My Leadership Style

1. Woo

Woo, or "winning others over", is something that is very prominent to me in everyday life as well as the workplace. I truly enjoy meeting new people and trying to find connections with others. As a leader, I will seek to earn the trust of my team, and I will strive to build deep connections in hopes that my colleagues know I support them and will do anything to help guide their goals/ ideas.

2. Communication

I believe I am a strong communicator, in fact I can only go a couple of minutes before striking up a new conversation. Communication is the key to understanding a team, and more importantly the key to understanding the goals and mission of a team. I could use my strong communication in a leadership position to express ideas to the group appropriately and professionally. Being a leader with clear communication will allow for growth, trust, and morale understanding.

3. Positivity

The mentors in my life that have remained memorable have always been the most positive leaders. It is essential to guide a team with positivity, as it allows everyone to feel inspired. I believe I am a very optimistic person and I have found great success bringing positivity into my work and academic life. As a leader, I would definitely be encouraging to my colleagues and celebrate their successes as my own.

4. Individualization

It is important when working in a team to value what everyone brings to the table. By measuring our skills and capabilities, we have the potential to become the best versions of ourselves. I believe I scored high for individualization because I often want to help others around me perform the best that they can. I believe this is a good quality to have as a leader because I will be able to create productive teams.

5. Ideation

I enjoy bringing authentic new ideas to the table in a workplace setting. Using creativity in the way we think and building off of others allows us to productively work in a group environment. As a leader I will be sure to allow everyone to be heard and welcomed by consistently asking for their fresh ideas and thoughts on said project.

Improvement of My Strengths

I am very thankful I have the opportunity to analyze my interpersonal strengths and be able to constantly improve them. Now that I am aware of what my top five traits are, I can work on growing in these strengths to become a better leader. For woo, I will continue to put myself out there in networking environments and ensure be open minded when working with new people. For communication, I will work on having more in depth conversations with my peers in order to truly understand the context of what is at hand. This will allow me to build even deeper relationships in the workplace. To improve my positivity, a simple understanding of choices is what I will continue to guide me. Just because I might have had a rough morning does not need I should let it ruin my day, positivity radiates from within and I want to work on building a more optimistic outlook. For individualization, I will work on putting more intimate time and devotion into understanding the true outcomes of a team based on our unique potential. To improve my ideation strength, I will continue to encourage others to share their new ideas so the I can grow in my own creativity potential. These five strengths alone all make for a fantastic leadership style when performed consistently!

The Difference Between Leaders and Managers

Although often used interchangeably, leaders and managers hold different definitions in the workplace. A manager is someone you report to, someone who delegates your tasks and grades your results. Managers tend to exercise execution and push the team to reach a certain deliverable. On the other hand, a leader is someone you can confide in for guidance and assistance. Leadership holds great value in the workplace as it can be a make or break for a team. Leaders should be encouraging and consistently supporting of a group, regardless of the position ranking.

Application of My Strengths as a Supply Chain Leader

As a future supply chain leader, I believe analyzing my strengths is an amazing start. The biggest key in supply chain is having the ability to adapt to growth internally and externally of the company. Being able to manage personal tasks as well as healthy relationships makes for harmony in a leadership position. I believe the strength I will focus on most often as a leader will be my communication trait. Communication allows us to understand the common goal within a company, which is super important when working within a team. Teamwork is detrimental in supply chain, it truly does take the wide range of ideas and creativity of many people to come up with successful results.