Why More Women Don’t Lead and Innovate - Transforming Your STEM Career Through Leadership and Innovation - page 46

eventually over our career. Thus, knowing our strengths and seeking goals that
are aligned with them will naturally lead to a higher level of performance.
So how do we “know” strengths? For a characteristic to be considered a
“strength” it must be something that we can do consistently and predictably at
optimal levels of performance. This strength is innate but also enhanced with
effort as the authors describe it to be a function of talent, knowledge, and skills
where each is described as follows: [16]

Talent: naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling or behavior that can be
productively applied. Often talents will come so easily to us that we don't recog-
nize them as talents and we believe everyone can do the same or similar things.

l

Knowledge: facts and lessons learned from an information gathering and
experiential perspective.

l

Skills: the mechanics, structure, process, or steps to accomplish an activity.

l

The key to building strengths is to first identify your primary talents, then
refine and enhance them with related knowledge and skill development activi-
ties. The question most of us ask is, “How do I know my strengths?” This topic
is a valuable resource in narrowing down your unique strengths as it is accom-
panied with a Strengths Finder Test. Using data collected over a 30-year period,
the authors developed 34 “themes of human talent” (see Table 3.3 ). Take time
to review this table and make note of attributes you believe to be your strengths.

TABLE 3.3 Personal Themes for Strengths

Attribute Definition

Achiever one with a constant drive for accomplishing tasks

Activator one who acts to start things in motion

Adaptability one who is especially adept at accommodating to changes in

direction/plan

Analytical one who requires data and/or proof to make sense of their

circumstances

Arranger one who enjoys orchestrating many tasks and variables to

a successful outcome

Belief one who strives to find some ultimate meaning behind

everything they do

Command one who steps up to positions of leadership without fear or

confrontation

Communication one who uses words to inspire action and education

Competition one who thrives on comparison and competition to be successful

Connectedness one who seeks to unite others through commonality

Continued