Understanding the Diversity Within Strengths (podcast)
Welcome to the next installment of the Leadership Vision Podcast where we share our expertise in the discovery, practice, and implementation of StrengthsFinder.
On this episode of the podcast, I’m chatting with our founder and president, Brian Schubring, about Strengths and Diversity. We know the word diversity means many things, but on the show, we’re using it to illustrate how a common language of Strengths can lead us to a greater understanding of the things that make us unique.
Most often, when someone goes through an experience with Strengths, they receive their top 5 Themes and those words describe things about them. Many times, there’s an alignment happening around those words but what they mean for each person can be significantly different based on any number of factors. It’s all very positive and helpful but what we’re doing at Leadership Vision is taking it a step further. You’ve probably heard us refer to this before, but we take a behavior-based approach to interpreting and understanding Strengths at a talent level. Meaning, there could be 10 to 20 unique Talents (identifiable behaviors) that we actually see that make up each Strength. Identifiable behaviors of how we think we form relationships, how we get things done, and how we influence people. This is where diversity comes in. The closer any of us get to an understanding of any one individual Strength, the more different we’re going to realize we are from someone else.
So listen now as we unpack what this means and why this is such an important next step for all of us on our Strengths journey and one or two ways you can begin to implement a similar approach for yourself or your organization.
Why Diversity?
We’re not applying Strengths to the color of one’s skin, the content of the character, the culture from which they come from, or their religious or political beliefs. We’re focused on the diversity of differences and the diversity of distinctions that Strengths can lead us towards. The language of Strengths is extremely life-giving. It brings a lot of potential but also presents a series of fundamental challenges. The topic of diversity pops up here because we think we’re talking about things that we have in common, but what is revealed is how uniquely beautiful and distinct we each are.
The greatest potential and greatest reward is an understanding of how it is that we can better relate to one another and be more aligned around the purpose that brings us together and have that sense of meaning in belonging. According to Brian,
When we first encounter diversity, we may first encounter a person’s skin color, or by their dialect or maybe by the location they have come from. We can easily identify that they’re doing something different. It’s that one or two or three things that we identify that then leads us to some assumptions beyond that. So diversity begins with the identifying of what we know is different. I believe that we begin by noticing the behaviors that we see the most noticing the most common behaviors to each of the Strengths. So essentially I’m not considering the 10 to 14 different behaviors of your unique strength of restorative. What I’m first identifying is those two or three elements of your strength the restorative that I see the most often that I’m the most comfortable with and that’s where we start trying to break it down into some fundamental elements of what is most recognizable.
About The Leadership Vision Podcast
The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in the discovery, practice, and implementation of StrengthsFinder. Leadership Vision uses StrengthsFinder to work with People, Teams, and Culture. We believe that knowing your Top 5 Strengths is only the beginning. Our highest potential exists in the ongoing exploration of our talents. Subscribe to the Leadership Vision Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
Please contact us if you have ANY questions about anything you heard in this episode, or if you’d like to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.
