Career Development During Lockdown #3: Focus on your Strengths
While we might all be in this pandemic together, we might also be experiencing very different kinds of shift in our working patterns.
Quite apart from the tragic deaths and the personal impact reverberating from these losses, we could feel changes to our working lives in a range of ways:
Sadly, some have suddenly lost their jobs
Others have been moved to reduced hours
Some are furloughed and may have an unexpected slice of time on their hands
Those working for themselves might be seeing their profitable businesses failing
Whatever your new work situation, my next suggestion for working on your career while the world changes around us, is to be super clear about your personal and professional strengths.
Don’t forget to see your strengths as being assets you can use to serve a cause or have an impact that’s important to you.
Don’t just think about what you CAN do, but also what you WANT to use these strengths to achieve.
What ARE Strengths?
1. Think about your personal strengths as well as your professional ones. The latter may be technical or related to your role, while the former may also include vital personal attributes that are highly relevant to the workplace
2. Strengths can include: skills (like written communication); personal attributes (like resilience); or knowledge (like coding). Some are specific to the role, others reflect the kind of person you are and how you approach your work.
3. Your unique combination of strengths can prime you for the ‘right job’ – you know when a role truly has your name on it.
Uncovering your strengths
There are many approaches to this including:
1.Psychometric assessments like Strengthsfinder, V.I.A. and i-3Profiling
These ask you a series of questions and use your responses to categorise your strengths, using comparative data from the thousands of other people who have taken the assessment. The results can help you think about whether you are making the most of your strengths at present or highlight strengths you hadn’t really taken seriously before.
You may have completed one of these assessments at work, in which case, why not dig it out and give it a fresh look. Ask whether this sounds like the strengths of the person you are today, or whether vital elements are missing.
2. Self-reporting
If I gave you five minutes to write down what you consider your strengths, what would you say? Why not do this now – your intuition will guide you and this will be a great starting point.
I can safely predict that you have more strengths than you immediately think, so another approach is to cast an eye over your professional successes and identify which mindsets or skills you deployed to bring those about. Think back over each job you’ve had and what you’re most proud of.
Now put all modesty aside and answer this question:
What are you great at?
Think about times at work where you really felt at the top of your game, using talents and knowledge to solve a problem or reach a successful result. What were you doing and what skills did you bring to this activity? In your answers you’ll find more clues to your strengths.
3. Ask people around you
This might feel like a dangerous one, so choose people carefully. Ask colleagues whose opinion you trust, who will be honest and fair; ask friends and family who know you well and who you respect.
Perhaps you’ve completed a 360 degree assessment at work, in which case take another look at the positive feedback you received from your colleagues or line manager.
Let these evaluations of your strengths really land, don’t brush them off, but ask which feel most accurate.
3. Deploying your Strengths
Now you have a round up of your strengths, which do you want to use in your next role?
Which allow you to realize the impact you want and achieve the results that make your work meaningful? Again, this is not just about what you’re great at, but also which of these will allow you to do work that gives you a sense of purpose.
‘But this is urgent!’
On the other hand, you might need to get a new job urgently. In this case, the best question to ask is:
‘Where are these strengths needed most right now?’
It may not be a role you’re familiar with or a sector you’ve worked in before, but if these strengths are needed and you have a record of success to demonstrate them, you’ll be able to adapt to the new environment if your motivation and commitment are powerful enough.
It’s unlikely you’ll be selected if the employer isn’t convinced, but don’t stop yourself from applying because your sector experience doesn’t match. You’ll need to make the case clearly, with evidence, but a fresh pair of eyes from another sector can be very welcome. Perhaps even more so in these current uncertain and volatile times.
Over to you
Could this be the perfect time to really take your strengths seriously, identify and illustrate them?
Not only will this give your confidence a welcome boost in these uncertain times, but I hope it will also allow you to think carefully about what you want to do with these unique combination of attributes, skills and knowledge.
If you’d like to discuss your strengths in more detail, drop me a line and we can arrange a chat.
Finally, don’t be afraid to speak clearly about your strengths. This isn’t boasting, it’s clarity.
If you have the evidence to hand with useful examples, that should help you speak out about the value you can offer to many situations.
Good luck in knowing and activating your strengths!
Clarity on your strengths is just one piece in the puzzle revealing what you need for a more fulfilling working life. In the Quickstep Career Change Programme you can also understand your values, purpose, interests, motivations, achievements, ideal life and your ideal working day. Knowing these provide your personal set of success criteria with which to evaluate future options.
You can arrange a free 30-minute call to discuss using the button below.