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You are here: Home / Archives for Strength Based Leadership

Get Serious About Strength Based Working

March 24, 2008 by David Zinger 2 Comments

Are you using your strengths in the service of results and your organization every day?

Have you taken a strength inventory? Quick, what were your strengths?

Chances are you have not even taken this baby step in workplace strength development. And if you did, chances are that you got a list that is sitting in some binder or book rather than being integrated into what you do everyday at work.

Is your work strength based? I am not talking about lifting weights and bulging muscles. Rather, do you know what you are best at and do you bring your best to work everyday in a variety of ways?

strong arm

Do you work at ensuring that all employees are using their strengths? How do you determine strengths? How do you go beyond listing strengths to living strengths and using them in the service of results, others and the organization?

Strength based leadership is a core foundation of this website. As we move into spring 2008, I will rekindle the strengths approach to encourage you to refresh your strengths development. When leadership is strength based and employees are operating from their strengths you will experience high levels of engagement and results.

I want to re-introduce the strength-based focus to work by offering some nuggets from earlier posts. I will do this over the next few weeks and then bring a fresh focus to strength based work. If you are intrigued by the nugget, I encourage you to click on the title as this will take you to the original article.

On Peter Drucker (November 11, 2005)

This was the very first post on strength based work, written on the day Peter Drucker died. Peter Drucker, one of the foremost management experts and writers, wrote a very important article on Managing Oneself. in the Harvard Business Review March-April. 1999: 65-70. The essence of managing oneself was to know our strengths and to fully develop a strength-based leadership approach. Here is a short strength burst from the article.

Drucker challenged each of us to ask ourselves: What are my strengths? How do I perform? What are my values? Where do I belong? What should my contribution be?

Don’t try to change yourself, Drucker cautioned. Instead, concentrate on improving the skills you have and accepting assignments that are tailored to your individual way of working. If you do that, you can transform yourself from an ordinary worker into an outstanding performer.

Chess not Checkers (December 2005)

Marcus Buckingham said the right move for leaders is to see their talent management as chess not checkers. Don’t treat everyone the same and limit their work and career moves. Recognize the differences and strengths of each individual and maximize the contribution of each person’s strengths to the purposes of the organization.

Here is a quote from the Wharton business article about Buckingham: How to tell a good manager from a bad manager? According to Buckingham, it’s simple: Bad managers play checkers. Good managers play chess. The good manager knows that not all employees work the same way. They know if they are to achieve success, they must put their employees in a position where they will be able to use their strengths.

The Free & Powerful VIA Signature Strenght Inventory (March 2006)

The foundation of Strength Based Leadership is the identification and application of strengths. There are numerous pathways to strength identification but one of my favorite tools is the VIA Signature Strength Inventory at http://www.authentichappiness.org/. There is no charge to complete the inventory and receive your results. I appreciate the solid psychological research behind the inventory and the sharp focus on your top 5 signature strengths out of a possible 24 strengths.

Here are a few statements about signature strengths from Martin Seligman’s classic book, Authentic Happiness.

Our life task is to deploy our signature strengths and virtues in the major realms of living: work, love, parenting, and finding purpose. Personal meaning is the attachment of your signature strengths to something larger than yourself.

At work, Seligman believed that re-crafting your job to deploy your strengths every day can change your career into a calling. Your work can be more satisfying than it is now by using your signature strengths at work more often.

Watch for future posts on achieving strength based approaches in the workplace.

Photo credit: 2005 Mar-Austin Type Tour-032 – Hyde Park Gym Muscle by http://flickr.com/photos/mrflip/8916916/

by David Zinger

Filed Under: Employee Engagement, Strength Based Leadership

Top 10 Employee Engagement Articles of 2007

December 31, 2007 by David Zinger 1 Comment

Here is an outline of my top 10 Employee Engagement articles for the last six months of 2007.

They are my favorite articles out of a possible 84 articles I wrote since July. I chose them based on how helpful they can be to the reader and how they also express my specific perspectives on employee engagement.

As an extra, I included a bonus article on engagement and retirement.

10

1. 18 Approaches to Transform Employee Engagement – Free Booklet. The free PDF booklet outlines the 18 actions individuals, leaders, and organizations can take to build robust employee engagement in their organization.

2. The Employee Engagement Chronicle. This is not one article but a series of articles over the year giving you a short summary, key point, article snippet, and link to the leading online information on employee engagement.

3. 10 Leadership Strength Application Methods. This is the final article of a series devoted to the application of StrengthsFinder 2.0 to leadership and employee engagement development. Working from a strengths perspective is one of the most important things we can do to foster and enhance employee engagement of leaders and employees.

4. Employee Engagement: Get Unstuck with Crucial Conversations. This article outlines Crucial Conversations as a very valuable and helpful tool to foster employee engagement. 

5. The 10 Simple Laws of Employee Engagement. This article outlines the application of John Maeda’s 10 Laws of Simplicity to employee engagement.

6. Leadership Zingers: Employee Engagement Video This was my first attempt at a video on employee engagement. I will learn the craft and plan to offer personal and helpful videos for you in 2008.

7. View the slides from the International Presentation on Employee Engagement. This article will take you to the PowerPoint slides used in an international webinar I co-conducted with Globoforce and Andy Parsley.

8. Employee Engagement is Connection. Employee engagement is all about connection…are you connected?

9. The Employee Engagement Six Pack. This article uses the six pack of aircraft instruments to look at six ways to assess employee engagement.

10.  Zengagement. This was a series of over 35 very short posts/articles with an image and a quotation to foster your thinking or inspiration on employee engagement.

***

Bonus Article: Blogging break…Retire Now. This article examines retirement less of a state and more as a way of approaching our work and our lives.

Photo Credit: Number 10 by http://flickr.com/photos/spilt-milk/164145237/

David Zinger is devoted to working with employee engagement

to foster results that matter for all.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement, Strength Based Leadership, Zengagement

Leadership Video: 2 Sources for Strengths

November 29, 2007 by David Zinger Leave a Comment

This video outlines 2 sources to determine your signature strengths.

Click here to view the video if the video does not load below.

Filed Under: Strength Based Leadership

Leadership Strength#5 – Empathy (MMP #35)

November 26, 2007 by David Zinger 1 Comment

Employee Engagement – Monday Morning Percolator #35

emapthy-carton.jpg

This is part 5 of a 5 part series on leadership strength development through the application of StrengthsFinder 2.0.

Click here to read the first article in the series.

Here is the schedule outlining my strength focus:

  1. Maximizer (Week 1)
  2. Strategic (Week 2)
  3. Positivity (Week 3)
  4. Ideation (Week 4)
  5. Empathy (Week 5) [Read more…] about Leadership Strength#5 – Empathy (MMP #35)

Filed Under: Strength Based Leadership

Leadership Strength#4 – Ideation (MMP #34)

November 19, 2007 by David Zinger 2 Comments

Employee Engagement Monday Morning Percolator #34

light-bulb-idea.jpg

This is part 4 of a 5 part series on leadership strength development through the application of StrengthsFinder 2.0.

Click here to read the first article in the series.

Here is the schedule outlining my strength focus:

  1. Maximizer (Week 1)
  2. Strategic (Week 2)
  3. Positivity (Week 3)
  4. Ideation (Week 4)
  5. Empathy (Week 5)

Here is a quick review of the process of working on our strengths: [Read more…] about Leadership Strength#4 – Ideation (MMP #34)

Filed Under: Strength Based Leadership

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David Zinger

Email: david@davidzinger.com
Phone 204 254 2130

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