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1-Page Summary of Strengths Based Leadership

Overview

Strengths Based Leadership is a book that helps you discover your leadership strengths. It’s not about emulating other leaders, but it’s more about using what you have and providing for teams’ needs.

To figure out what traits make a good leader, we need to ask the people who follow them. They will tell us that they want to be led by someone they can trust. A compassionate person is also important for people to feel safe with their leaders. People also like it when their leaders are stable and hopeful about the future.

There are different types of leaders, and they have different ways of dealing with problems. For example, some leaders focus on getting the job done while others inspire people to do great things. There are also other categories like relationship builders who make sure that everyone is working together as a team.

The best teams are made up of people who feel that they have the resources, opportunities, and confidence to be successful. They also have a supervisor who cares about them. The best way to predict whether or not a team will be functional is if the members say yes when asked if they’re respected by their supervisors and given feedback on how well they’re doing.

The book Strengths Based Leadership was published in 2008.

Key Takeaways

Some leaders think that they can get better by copying other people’s skills and styles. However, the best way to lead is by understanding your unique strengths profile and developing yourself based on those strengths.

Followers are best suited to identify the qualities of a good leader. Leaders have strengths that allow them to create an environment for their followers.

If a leader is trustworthy, he or she will inspire followers to stay with the organization and be more productive. Compassionate leaders inspire their followers to be more engaged at work and collaborate better with customers.

Employees prefer leaders who are stable and consistent. These traits can be best achieved by creating transparency in the company’s operations.

Leaders who focus on the future and inspire hope in their employees are more successful. These leaders have strengths like Discipline, Responsibility, Command, Woo, Adaptability and Empathy. They use these strengths to get tasks done and build strong teams.

Leaders who are good at strategic thinking, including context and input, help their employees make informed decisions. The most engaged employees feel like the company respects them and is confident in its future.

Key Takeaway 1: Some leaders believe that they can improve by emulating other leaders or developing skills they do not already have, but leading based on a unique strengths profile is more likely to succeed.

Leadership is a popular topic for seminars, books and training. However, these fads don’t always work because the leader’s skills have to be unique to his or her situation. Even the greatest leaders would struggle if they were in different situations.

Although leadership training materials suggest that leaders should emulate past great leaders, this is not as useful because the circumstances are different. Even if you read biographies of polar explorers and Abraham Lincoln, you would not be able to relate to their situations. Therefore, it’s more practical for a modern leader to learn about leadership from people who face similar challenges.

Key Takeaway 2: Followers are best equipped to state which qualities make a good leader.

Research revealed that followers of leaders do not admire wisdom, humor, and humility. They look for trust, compassion, stability, and hope in their leaders.

Strengths Based Leadership Book Summary, by Tom Rath, Barry Conchie