A Deep Dive Into The Influencing Domain of CliftonStrengths
I’m Convinced: The Influencing Domain of CliftonStrengths
Harnessing one's innate abilities and learned skills is crucial for personal and professional development. The CliftonStrengths personality assessment is an invaluable tool in this journey, offering insights into individual strengths across four domains: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking (read our overview of all four domains here). Today, we turn our focus to the Influencing domain, diving deep into its unique strengths and how they can be leveraged in leadership roles.
“I am an agent of change!”
The Influencing domain is all about making an impact, persuading, and leading others. Those with strengths in this domain are often seen as natural leaders and motivators, adept at selling ideas and bringing visions to life. They're the voices that rally teams and influence change. Here are the key strengths within this domain:
Activator
Command
Communication
Competition
Maximizer
Self-Assurance
Significance
Woo
Let's delve into each strength, exploring how they can be maximized for effective leadership and detailing specific strategies and tools to harness these abilities.
1. Activator
Activators are the catalysts for action, turning thoughts into tangible deeds. As leaders, they excel in kickstarting projects and motivating teams to move from planning to execution swiftly.
Leadership Technique: Use your natural urgency to set the pace for your team. Create quick-start guides and action plans to help team members transition from planning to doing.
Bonus Technique: Encourage an 'action-oriented' culture where rapid execution is valued and rewarded.
Suggested Software: Consider using Trello for its simplicity in tracking tasks from 'To Do' to 'Done'.
2. Command
Those with Command strengths have a presence that can take charge of a situation and make decisions confidently. They are not afraid to steer the ship during a storm.
Leadership Technique: Establish standard operating procedures that drives team members to consult with you in ambiguous situations. Your confidence can be a beacon for others in times of uncertainty.
Bonus Technique: Host regular office hours where team members can benefit from your direct and decisive nature. By setting the scene to be an opt-in environment, teammates are already signaling that they are open to hearing your input.
Suggested Software: Use Slack for instant communication and quick decision-making processes.
3. Communication
Individuals with Communication strengths are natural storytellers, able to convey messages in engaging and relatable ways. Leaders who leverage their Communication strength shine when they are articulating information, decisions, and visions.
Leadership Technique: Harness your storytelling ability to describe visions, goals, and values in a way that resonates with your team. Identify and share user stories from customers and employees to communicate your decisions.
Bonus Technique: Curate times during the week for sharing success stories and lessons learned within the team. This will fill your mental library with more details and examples for you to integrate into your work.
Suggested Software: Medium can be a great platform for sharing longer-form stories and insights, as well as providing content that can be used for internal and external marketing.
4. Competition
Competition strengths lie in the desire to win and the understanding of what it takes to be the best. These individuals thrive on comparison and competition.
Leadership Technique: Foster a healthy competitive environment where team members are motivated to excel and exceed benchmarks. Celebrate failure to make the learning process positive, rather than punitive.
Bonus Technique: Implement regular performance metrics and leaderboards to celebrate high achievers. Incentivize these high performers to share their tricks and strategies alongside honing their own skills to surpass their own performance.
Suggested Software: Use gamification platforms like Kahoot! for team-building and performance tracking.
5. Maximizer
Maximizers focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.
Leadership Technique: Focus on each team member's strengths and develop strategies to leverage these for team success. Help those team members reframe their work to lean into strengths, rather than compensate for weaknesses.
Bonus Technique: Implement a strengths-based development program within your team. This will give everyone a common language around working preferences.
Suggested Software: The CliftonStrengths Assessment is an excellent tool for identifying and maximizing individual strengths. BONUS: We at Learn to Scale provide a full leadership program for teams using the CliftonStrengths Assessment —> Learn More
6. Self-Assurance
Self-Assurance is marked by confidence in one's ability to manage their own life and decisions. Such leaders are often seen as steadfast and resolute.
Leadership Technique: Lead by example, showing confidence in your decisions and actions, inspiring your team to do the same. Get out from behind a screen and into in-person events and situations.
Bonus Technique: Mentor others in developing their self-assurance and decision-making skills. Early-career or under-represented team members can find great value in seeing what confidence looks like on a day-to-day basis.
Suggested Software: Consider sharing your experience through a course creation platform like Teachable.
7. Significance
Those with Significance strengths want to be seen as important in the eyes of others. These leaders are motivated by recognition and status while helping others see the diamonds in the rough.
Leadership Technique: Use your drive for recognition to set high standards and achieve visible results. Role model how to celebrate success and navigate failure gracefully.
Bonus Technique: Encourage public recognition of team and individual achievements by curating and filling physical and virtual spaces with regular praise.
Suggested Software: Recognize integrates with Slack and Teams for easy and public employee recognition.
8. Woo
Woo stands for 'winning others over'. Individuals with this strength enjoy meeting new people and gaining their trust with charm and persuasion.
Leadership Technique: Use your social skills to build networks and alliances both within and outside your organization. Bring along a teammate for the ride to both see your strength in action as well as build connections.
Bonus Technique: Host networking events and team-building activities to foster connections, specially at auspicious times of the year (holidays, cultural events, etc.) or when new team members join.
Suggested Software: LunchClub can help you professionally connect with a whole range of people on a regular basis.
Are you ready to harness your Influencing strengths and lead with impact? Our team is here to guide you through leadership assessments and workshops tailored to your organization's needs.
Let’s transform your influence into action!
