Managing your Talents [26] - Belief

According to Gallup, the essence of the talent theme of Belief is the following:

"If you possess a strong Belief theme, you have certain core values that are enduring. These values vary from one person to another, but ordinarily your Belief theme causes you to be family-oriented, altruistic, even spiritual, and to value responsibility and high ethics — both in yourself and others. These core values affect your behavior in many ways. They give your life meaning and satisfaction; in your view, success is more than money and prestige. They provide you with direction, guiding you through the temptations and distractions of life toward a consistent set of priorities. This consistency is the foundation for all your relationships. Your friends call you dependable. “I know where you stand,” they say. Your Belief makes you easy to trust. It also demands that you find work that meshes with your values. Your work must be meaningful; it must matter to you. And guided by your Belief theme it will matter only if it gives you a chance to live out your values.  You are especially guided by ethics and morals.  Some things are simply non-negotiable to you."

But a talent like this on itself is quite meaningless unless you develop and manage it. That is why we believe that "a well managed talent becomes a strength, but a mismanaged talent becomes a detriment".

How do you manage the talent of Belief?

A much better way to describe the talent theme of Belief is with the word "Conviction".  Your patterns of thought, emotion and action are strongly determined by your strong and clear inner conviction. But it is that same brilliant quality that may well hijack you in a manner which causes a detriment  - your possible tendency to judge others. People with this Belief talent of will testify to this.  the strong conviction which guides them is simply so strong that they sometimes cannot accept someone else to be of different conviction or values.  This judgmental tendency needs consistent and intentional management not to become a serious detriment in relationships.  

How?

It sounds a lot simpler than it is, but this is really where it starts:  Accept that there may be other convictions than yours that does not mean or cause harm, and that tolerance of this difference of belief or values does not mean that you compromise on your own convictions.  It all starts in your way of thinking.  The talent of Belief is exceptionally strong (very often people which this talent also find this to be their "core theme" of strengths). It is also clustered within the domain of Executing Talents - which means it affects the way you do things in a very definite way.  Your convictions and values guide your actions.  But, it is exactly this intensity of conviction that may lead to the detriment of judgementalism. Again:  the key to managing this is that you should understand that acceptance of different views, opinions, beliefs or values does NOT mena the sacrifice of your own. Sometimes I like to challenge people with the Belief theme by asking them:  "Is your conviction so ungrounded that it cannot stand it's ground amongst other convictions?"  I believe this to be essential in managing this awesome talent.

Secondly:  a strong Belief theme may at times be resistant to change or new creative ideas.  This also is rooted in the need for Belief to stay grounded in the familiar and what you belief to be true.  But you may find that if this is unmanaged, it may well be of detriment to yourself.  Manage this well. 

How?

Change is difficult for you, as change follows your convictions and beliefs. Thus, you will only embrace change once you are convinced that it aligns with your values and beliefs. This is not an instant process, in most cases.  This process of acceptance and evaluation takes time.  Therefor you do not rush into change without some clear deliberation.
If you do not have the luxury of time to first deliberate over the change, you will need to manage this need for time well.  You will need to intentionally "turn down" your "volume knob" on the constant need to be completely at ease with where the change will lead and if it aligns with your beliefs.  This will mostly not be necessary, as you are very clear on your convictions, but we all know there are a lot of grey areas in life - and especially so when change is involved.
What will also work well for you is to make sure you have a "back door" open....something like an "exit clause", which you can use when you later down the line realize that your beliefs are compromised by the change, and you want out.

Go live with conviction....it is what drives you!


- by Dries Lombaard, Director of Strategic Engagement at the Strengths Institute SA.

Important note when reading this: in this series, I simply focus on the specific talent in isolation. I do not take the crucial element of Talent Dynamics (two or more talent themes combining) into consideration. This is very important as any Coach should take that into consideration when coaching people in their talents. But you need to understand the challenges that the talent theme on its own might hold. Therefor the challenges in managing the talent as explained below might not be applicable to everyone, as the dynamics with some of their other talent themes might override the specific challenge and "make up for it". But, knowledge of the most common management challenges in every talent theme still is crucial in talent development and when turning the talent into a strength.  All information is my own, acquired by years of Strengths Coaching experience, and not verified or scientifically tested by Gallup. The definition at the beginning is the intellectual property of Gallup, and well researched.