Part 7 of our 8-part Strengths Connection Series
Welcome to the seventh installment of our Strengths Connection Series! I’m Jen Pasquale, founder of Lead with Curiosity, and I’m thrilled to continue this journey with you. I hope you’ve been able to reflect on how strengths development applies both to you as an individual and to the teams you’re a part of.
In our last episode, we discussed the team grid, a cornerstone of team workshops that reveals where your team’s strengths lie. In today's video, we’ll dive deeper into how those strengths are categorized, focusing on the four domains of strengths and how they show up in team dynamics.
If you prefer to read, you'll find a quick summary of the video's main points below.
The Four Domains of Strengths
All 34 talents from the CliftonStrengths assessment roll up into four primary domains:
Strategic Thinking
Influencing
Relationship Building
Executing
These domains help teams understand how their talents function together and where their focus lies. But what’s important to remember is that talents are versatile. Just because a talent falls under one domain doesn’t mean it can’t be used in other areas.
The Flexibility of Talents
Let me give you an example. One of my top talents is Futuristic, which falls under the Strategic Thinking domain. While this talent typically involves thinking ahead and imagining possibilities, I can also use it in a Relationship Building way by helping people envision what their future relationships or projects could look like. Similarly, I can use Futuristic in the Influencing domain to help a team rally around a vision or in the Executing domain to map out steps for achieving long-term goals.
The key takeaway here is that you’re not locked into any one domain with your talents. You can leverage them in different ways to meet the needs of your team.
Addressing Talent Gaps on Teams
Another common concern teams have is when certain talents are less prominent or even absent. For example, I’ve worked with teams where Empathy is low, especially among senior leaders, and this can raise questions about how to support team members emotionally. I have yet to find a senior leader who wants to celebrate their or their team's perceived "lack of empathy".
I always emphasize that the absence of a specific talent doesn’t necessarily mean a team has a deficit. If Empathy is low, what other talents can be leaned on? Maybe the team has Developer or Individualization, which are also Relationship Building talents and can help foster connection and understanding differently than might be achieved with Empathy. With intention and awareness, a team can still care for its teammates regardless of which relationship-building talents are high or low.
Focus on What’s Working
It’s also important to reflect on what’s already working well. If your team has been functioning effectively, the absence of a particular talent may not be as big of an issue as you think. It’s possible that the team has developed a culture that fills the gap naturally through other strengths.
On the flip side, if the team is struggling with connection or morale, that’s when the absence of a talent like Empathy might become more apparent. Even then, we can focus on leveraging the talents that are present to address those challenges.
Releasing Lower-Level Expectations
In earlier newsletters in this series, we talked about the importance of releasing lower-level talents as expectations. This is critical for teams as well. Instead of focusing on what talents are missing, we shift attention to what strengths we do have and how we can use them to meet the needs of the team.
In many cases, someone with Relator might create just as strong of a connection as someone with Empathy. It’s about how talents are used, not whether a particular talent is present.
I hope today’s episode sheds light on the flexibility of strengths and how you can work with what you have to enhance team dynamics. If you’ve found value in this series, I encourage you to share it with someone who could benefit from strengths development.
Thanks for joining me, and I’ll see you in our final episode!
Until then, stay curious!
Gallup®, CliftonStrengths®, StrengthsFinder®, the 34 CliftonStrengths® Talent Theme Names® and Domains® are all trademarks of Gallup, Inc. Copyright © 2022 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
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