Our Top 5 Posts from 2016
2016 was a really great year for Leadership Vision. Our team blossomed to 11 wonderful people as we found ourselves busier than ever. We launched a personal online Strengths course, which enabled us to work with teams and groups of people through a semi-virtual delivery system. We continued Strengths Communicator Training, bringing the total number of participants to nearly 250. In 2016, we got hyper clear with our message and clarified our areas of focus. It has been a huge year of learning for us as a team and company.
As the year comes to a close, I spent time digging through our Google Analytics to see which of the articles we wrote in 2016 were the most popular. Unlike last year, there wasn’t a clear theme of posts that were popular. In broad terms, they all come back to relationships, because ultimately, that’s what our business is all about.
You may have missed these, so here’s an opportunity to catch up or refresh your mind on some of our great content from the past year.
Meet Our Team
Surprisingly, one of our most popular pages on the site wasn’t an article, but rather our team page. This makes sense since we made several additions and updates to it throughout the year. In January we added Bethany, and over the summer, we hired our first Leadership Vision high school intern. Jeff came on board this fall, and Logan (not pictured on the site as of December 2016), will be official as of January 1.
Something we talk about often around the office is that we’re “relational on purpose.” Relationships are at the heart of our work. This starts with our team, and we took strides this last year to strengths various components of how we operate internally. We’re still figuring this out (with a few of us working remotely), but so far, we’ve seen tremendous improvements in our communication and collaboration.
The Strengths Course
After many months of tinkering and tweaking, we Aleasha and I launched an online tool to help individuals and teams understand their Strengths results, and help make a plan for how to use them in the future. The purpose of this course is to help individuals gain a deeper understanding of their unique Strengths profile. Through a guided process of Reflection, Observation and Application, participants will experience the Leadership Vision approach and begin creating their own personal narrative around Strengths.
Our hope when we launched the course was to enable anyone the opportunity to go deeper with their StrengthsFinder results, no matter where they live. With three different price points (and one that was free), it’s intended to be affordable to all.
Personal Strengths Aha: “Hard to Live With” Strengths
I love this post from Linda, because it shows what can happen when you have a personal epiphany about your own Strengths results. At Leadership Vision, we have a specific delivery around how we hold Strengths Based conversations. However, Linda found that she learns the most about the visible behaviors of strengths by simply practicing the art of paying attention. Everyday conversations are where some of the best learning can take place. Here are a few tips to capitalize on daily experiences to have your own “Strength aha.”
Which of your Strengths are hard to live with?
Strengths Terminology: Talent, Theme, and Strength
The words “Theme” and “Strength” are often misused or misunderstood. Simply put, a “Theme” is a grouping of talents. A “Strength” is a Theme which has been productively applied. At Leadership Vision, we call this “generative”, meaning it brings life to you and gives life to others. Bethany wrote a great post that explained, in simple terms, what these terms mean, and how we are using them in our core process.
Understand Talent, Theme, and Strength
Changing Your Internal Script: Filtering Feedback Through Strengths
This post from Aleasha is one of the best posts we’ve ever published. Often, the mere whisper of the word feedback from a colleague, friend, client or boss makes us wince in anticipatory fear, and plummet our thoughts into the abyss of failure. It doesn’t have to be that way when we utilize the language of Strengths. I love this post because Aleasha does an amazing job of explaining a few simple ways that understanding your own Strengths will impact your relationships and improve this feedback process. Ultimately, this will make you a better person all around.
Other Posts
We had a lot of great content on the blog this year. Were there other posts that you resonated with? Are there specifics topics you’d like us to explore in the future? Share in the comments below.
