15 Behaviours of Emotionally Intelligent People

This article originally appeared in Inc.com 

When emotional intelligence (EQ) first appeared to the masses, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70 percent of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into the broadly held assumption that IQ was the sole source of success.

Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as being the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. The connection is so strong that 90 percent of top performers have high emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions to achieve positive results.

Despite the significance of EQ, its intangible nature makes it difficult to measure and to know what to do to improve it if you’re lacking. You can always take a scientifically validated test, such as the one that comes with the Emotional Intelligence 2.0 book, but unfortunately, most such tests aren’t free. So, I’ve analyzed the data from the million-plus people TalentSmart has tested in order to identify the behaviors that are the hallmarks of a high EQ. What follows are sure signs that you have a high EQ.

1. You have a robust emotional vocabularyAll people experience emotions, but it is a select few who can accurately identify them as they occur. Our research shows that only 36 percent of people can do this, which is problematic because unlabeled emotions often go misunderstood, which leads to irrational choices and counterproductive actions.

People with high EQs master their emotions because they understand them, and they use an extensive vocabulary of feelings to do so. While many people might describe themselves as simply feeling “bad,” emotionally intelligent people can pinpoint whether they feel “irritable,” “frustrated,” “downtrodden,” or “anxious.” The more specific your word choice, the better insight you have into exactly how you are feeling, what caused it, and what you should do about it.

2. You’re curious about peopleIt doesn’t matter if they’re introverted or extroverted, emotionally intelligent people are curious about everyone around them. This curiosity is the product of empathy, one of the most significant gateways to a high EQ. The more you care about other people and what they’re going through, the more curiosity you’re going to have about them.

3. You embrace changeEmotionally intelligent people are flexible and are constantly adapting. They know that fear of change is paralyzing and a major threat to their success and happiness. They look for change that is lurking just around the corner, and they form a plan of action should these changes occur.

4. You know your strengths and weaknessesEmotionally intelligent people don’t just understand emotions; they know what they’re good at and what they’re terrible at. They also know who pushes their buttons and the environments (both situations and people) that enable them to succeed. Having a high EQ means you know your strengths and how to lean into and use them to your full advantage while keeping your weaknesses from holding you back.

5. You’re a good judge of characterMuch of emotional intelligence comes down to social awareness; the ability to read other people, know what they’re about, and understand what they’re going through. Over time, this skill makes you an exceptional judge of character. People are no mystery to you. You know what they’re all about and understand their motivations, even those that lie hidden beneath the surface.

Inc.com: Why You Need Emotional Intelligence to Succeed

6. You are difficult to offendIf you have a firm grasp of who you are, it’s difficult for someone to say or do something that gets your goat. Emotionally intelligent people are self-confident and open-minded, which creates a pretty thick skin. You may even poke fun at yourself or let other people make jokes about you because you are able to mentally draw the line between humor and degradation.

7. You know how to say no (to yourself and others)Emotional intelligence means knowing how to exert self-control. You delay gratification and avoid impulsive action. Research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, shows that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression. Saying no is a major self-control challenge for many people, but “No” is a powerful word that you should unafraid to wield. When it’s time to say no, emotionally intelligent people avoid phrases such as “I don’t think I can” or “I’m not certain.” Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill them.

8. You let go of mistakesEmotionally intelligent people distance themselves from their mistakes, but do so without forgetting them. By keeping their mistakes at a safe distance, yet still handy enough to refer to, they are able to adapt and adjust for future success. It takes refined self-awareness to walk this tightrope between dwelling and remembering. Dwelling too long on your mistakes makes you anxious and gun shy, while forgetting about them completely makes you bound to repeat them. The key to balance lies in your ability to transform failures into nuggets of improvement. This creates the tendency to get right back up every time you fall down.

9. You give and expect nothing in returnWhen someone gives you something spontaneously, without expecting anything in return, this leaves a powerful impression. For example, you might have an interesting conversation with someone about a book, and when you see them again a month later, you show up with the book in hand. Emotionally intelligent people build strong relationships because they are constantly thinking about others.

10. You don’t hold grudgesThe negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a stress response. Just thinking about the event sends your body into fight-or-flight mode, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. When the threat is imminent, this reaction is essential to your survival, but when the threat is ancient history, holding onto that stress wreaks havoc on your body and can have devastating health consequences over time. In fact, researchers at Emory University have shown that holding onto stress contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease. Holding onto a grudge means you’re holding onto stress, and emotionally intelligent people know to avoid this at all costs. Letting go of a grudge not only makes you feel better now but can also improve your health.

Inc.com: Why You Should Hire for Emotional Intelligence

11. You neutralize toxic peopleDealing with difficult people is frustrating and exhausting for most. But high-EQ individuals control their interactions with toxic people by keeping their feelings in check. When they need to confront a toxic person, they approach the situation rationally. They identify their own emotions and don’t allow anger or frustration to fuel the chaos. They also consider the difficult person’s standpoint and are able to find solutions and common ground. Even when things completely derail, emotionally intelligent people are able to take the toxic person with a grain of salt to avoid letting him or her bring them down.

12. You don’t seek perfectionEmotionally intelligent people won’t set perfection as their target because they know that it doesn’t exist. Human beings, by our very nature, are fallible. When perfection is your goal, you’re always left with a nagging sense of failure that makes you want to give up or reduce your effort. You end up spending time lamenting what you failed to accomplish and should have done differently instead of moving forward, excited about what you’ve achieved and what you will accomplish in the future.

13. You appreciate what you haveTaking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the right thing to do; it also improves your mood by reducing the stress hormone cortisol (in some cases by 23 percent). Research conducted at the University of California, Davis, found that people who work daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experience improved mood, energy, and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol play a major role in this.

14. You disconnectTaking regular time off the grid is a sign of a high EQ because it helps you to keep your stress under control and to live in the moment. When you make yourself available to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant barrage of stressors. Forcing yourself offline and even–gulp!–turning off your phone gives your body and mind a break. Studies have shown that something as simple as an email break can lower stress levels. Technology enables constant communication and the expectation that you should be available 24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free moment outside of work when an email with the power to bring your thinking (read: stressing) back to work can drop onto your phone at any moment.

15. You limit your caffeine intakeDrinking excessive amounts of caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline, which is the primary source of a fight-or-flight response. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response to ensure survival. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email. When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyper-aroused state of stress, your emotions overrun your behavior. Caffeine’s long half-life ensures you stay this way as it takes its sweet time working its way out of your body. High-EQ individuals know that caffeine is trouble, and they don’t let it get the better of them.

Inc.com: 5 Aspects of Emotional Intelligence Required for Effective Leadership

16. You get enough sleepIt’s difficult to overstate the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams) so that you wake up alert and clearheaded. High-EQ individuals know that their self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when they don’t get enough–or the right kind–of sleep. So, they make sleep a top priority.

17. You stop negative self-talk in its tracksThe more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that–thoughts, not facts. When it feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain’s natural tendency to perceive threats (inflating the frequency or severity of an event). Emotionally intelligent people separate their thoughts from the facts in order to escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive, new outlook.

18. You won’t let anyone limit your joyWhen your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from the opinions of other people, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something they’ve done, they won’t let anyone’s opinions or snide remarks take that away from them. While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think, you don’t have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what other people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within.

This article originally appeared on Inc.com

Five Practices of Great Strengths Coaching - [Guest Article]

by Stephen Shields, Senior Practice Consultant, Gallup

One of Gallup’s primary performance insights is that there are different strengths-based paths to the same outcomes. For strengths performance coaching, this means that there is no definitive style that describes a great coach. A coach’s ability, for example, to envision a potential positive outcome for a series of coaching sessions can be born of any theme. A coach who sees potential might be leaning on their own theme of Maximizer, for example. Or they might equally be pulling from their Strategic or even Futuristic. Similarly, while styles may vary according to that coach’s specific strengths, there are some common practices that can be seen in great coaching. Here are five I have found helpful in my own experience as a coach. 

1. Begin with great questions. When I first began coaching around strengths, I developed a list of initial questions from a variety of sources. Over time, I culled the list as I found some questions to be more helpful than others. As I continued using my questions, I came to realize that they were, basically, “insight nets” -- useful tools that helped me gather initial discoveries to pursue later with my client. As I’ve certified other strengths coaches over the years, I’ve frequently been asked by my students to provide them my list of questions. And while I’m happy to give examples, I typically encourage new coaches to develop their own list -- one that reflects their own strengths and style. In Gallup’s strengths courses, individuals pursuing strengths performance coach certification are exposed to a plethora of questions from which they can begin to assemble such a list. The purpose of such questions, of course, is to help you and your client to…
2. Pursue insights and emotions. While compiling such a list of questions is valuable, new coaches may sometimes spend too much time “sticking to the script” and remain married to their question list. Experienced coaches are instead constantly looking for promising rabbit trails that will help them transform the session from an interview to a conversation. Great coaches know whether an alternative path is worth pursuing or not based on whether they see their client discovering new or deeper insights or emotions. When you see your client’s emotion, you may be hitting a passion point. Clifton StrengthsFinder not only reveals what people are good at, but also something about their passion and what really motivates them. When coaches lean into their client’s passion, they are more likely to help them find new and helpful insights. Another indication that a profitable rabbit trail is presenting itself is when you see your client begin to have an “a-ha” Moment. Dive into that new realization and help your client explore it. Be selective, of course, about how many rabbit trails you pursue.When you pursue your clients “a-has” and emotions based on the past, you are following another great coaching practice…
3. Leverage your client’s experience.  Princeton’s Dr. Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel Prize in Economics for his work demonstrating that an individual’s decisions are mostly driven by emotions. Building on Kahneman’s work, Gallup research has been able to quantify that 70% of our decisions are based on emotion. Therefore your clients’ experiences are context for your clients’ emotions. One way to leverage experience is to help your client focus on activities in which they find ease, excellence or enjoyment. Help them consider the parts of their role they enjoy the most. Then explore the connection between their Signature Themes and that experience. In this way, you are helping them to connect those emotions with an understanding of their strengths. This will both deepen their understanding of and commitment to their own key strengths. But a great coaching session doesn’t just end with a deeper understanding.Coaching sessions that transform clients…
4. End with action. A few years ago, the Center for Creative Leadership originated the 70:20:10 learning and development ratio. It’s been expressed in a variety of ways but, essentially, the ratio captures that 70% of what precipitates true change is experience, 20% is relationships and 10% is information transfer. Accordingly, smart coaches recognize that real change occurs between coaching sessions. That is when their clients can have the experience (70%) of applying their new insights. To leverage this powerful change dynamic, the best coaches complete their coaching sessions by helping their client to develop a few specific new actions.
   
   Clients will tend to articulate their intentions as mere goals or aspirations. They may say, “I need to do a better job listening to my team.” The best coach will affirm the goal, but also help drive the client to more specificity: “That’s fantastic! What is one specific action you can take this week to do a better job listening to your team?” One helpful criterion for evaluating the specificity of an action is to ask, “Is this a filmable behavior?” If a film crew came in and filmed you doing that action, would anyone watching the video be able to articulate exactly what you’re doing? Under this criterion “A better job listening” is not specific enough, because you can’t film intention; it can’t be seen. “Sending out an email one day before the next team meeting to ask everyone if they have any items they’d like to add to our agenda,” is a specific filmable behavior that is easily verifiable. The email either went out or it didn’t.
   
   In the coaching session, after you and your client develop one or two great actions, then you can…
5. Hold your client accountable to their own best intentions.  Part of the powerful dynamic between great coaches and their clients is that 1) the clients generate their own actions and 2) the coaches remind them of their intentions and follow up. Less skillful coaches will overly rely on suggesting actions, not realizing that if the client generates their own action ideas, they will have far more ownership of the actions. Highly effective coaches will then send an email to their client after a session where they 1) express appreciation for the conversation, 2) review one or two key conversation points or insights that came up during the session, 3) remind the client of their intended actions, and 4) let the client know that the coach is looking forward to hearing how the execution of the client’s actions went when they next meet. Then, in the next session, the first thing the coach explores is that execution -- is it an action that they wish to continue doing? What did they learn from the action’s execution?  
   
   When you first begin meeting with a new client, the earlier conversations will tend to be more educational as you help the client to understand their strengths. But if education becomes the essence of ongoing conversations, the coaching relationship will most definitely have a limited shelf life. Longevity in thriving coaching relationships only comes when the client is also bringing something to the table: how they are operationalizing their understanding of their strengths, and how that is leading them to even deeper insights.
   
   By focusing on specific actions, you are truly helping your client to transform.
   
   Part of the challenge of coaching is accommodating the high variability of talents that coaches find in their clients. Part of the joy of coaching is identifying the best ways for coaches to apply their own coaching style to their clients! These five practices provide a helpful tactical framework within which each coach can execute their unique helping style!

Stephen Shields is a Senior Practice Consultant with Gallup. He conducts one-on-one coaching with executive and mid-level managers and team-building sessions with management and leadership groups; he also presents on leadership and employee and customer engagement to large groups. He has worked with clients in the healthcare, financial services, retail, insurance, hospitality and pharmaceutical sectors

Leave the perks; take the coaching {Guest Article}

By Charlotte Saulny

President and SVP of Education and Coaching at The Marcus Buckingham Company.

Foosball tables and wellness programs may attract talent, but they won’t keep it.

Whether you’re in Silicon Valley or Kansas City, you are living in a startup world now. We all are. Every year, the U.S. sees about 4,000 new start-ups, even though only 15 of those will generate 95% of the economic returns.[1] Despite the long odds, optimistic entrepreneurs continue breaking virtual ground on a daily basis. Even the U.S. Government backs the rising tide of start-ups in hopes of creating more high-quality jobs and driving the innovation we need to solve some of the globe’s biggest issues. 


More than any other thing you do to develop your team leaders, coaching helps to create a high-performing culture, because it is:

• Coaching identifies critical challenges and points to education and practices that help people learn how to be the best version of themselves, not only at work, but also in life.
• One-to-one coaching is “just for me and just enough of what I need right now, encouraging people to take what is unique about them and make it useful.
• Providing one-to-one coaching flaunts your commitment to nurturing talent. I often ask people, “what is the meaning you’re attaching to that action?” The action of investing directly in someone’s development conveys a pretty clear meaning: “I care about your future success.”

This start-up economy in which we find ourselves has big implications for hiring and retention of talent, and for culture. Many organizations try to differentiate themselves by offering increasingly extravagant perks. But fighting the perk war is a losing battle. Not because perks aren’t desirable. They are (don’t you dare try to take away my office stash of chocolate almonds). And not because your corporate culture isn’t important. It definitely is. When it comes to hiring and retaining talent, culture is the only meaningful differentiator.

But your corporate culture is about far more than whether people can bring their dogs to the office or do downward-facing dog onsite at noon. When it comes to retaining and nurturing talent, you have to do one thing: create an environment in which people feel like they have the opportunity to do their best work, every day. Perks are an investment in the present moment. If you want to retain your talent, you need to be investing in your people’s future.

Superstars need coaches.

There are many valid and important ways to create a culture in which people can do their best work. Learning programs can help people discover new ways of seeing and applying their innate strengths. Technology can increasingly understand who people are and deliver content that is meaningful, personalized, and relevant to what they need right now, at this very moment. But the most powerful, proven mechanism to support the culture that fosters and sustains talent is coaching.

In the corporate world, we are slowly expanding our structure of interpretation around coaching. It used to be that coaching was leveraged to help a struggling executive. It might as well have been dubbed swim coaching, because it was aimed at people trying to keep their heads above water (or to keep from drowning others). But that attitude is changing, fast. In fact, coaching has its greatest impact not in remediating poor performance, but in retaining top talent. Google’s Eric Schmidt went as far as to say that a board member telling him to get a coach — when he was already a highly successful CEO — was the best advice he ever received. As he put it, every famous athlete, every famous performer, has somebody who’s a coach to give them perspective.

When you look outside the corporate world, it’s easy to see how true that is. The most successful music superstars all have vocal coaches who put them through their paces and catch the subtle nuances that improve performance. It’s inconceivable that a top athlete would go without a coach. Quite frankly, without a coach, it would be impossible even to be a top athlete. Some coaches are highly visible, pacing the sidelines and showing up at the parades (it’s worth noting that Phil Jackson led Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant to 11 NBA titles between them, while their total without the great coach was exactly zero). Other coaches are behind the scenes, known only to insiders who watch closely (everyone knows Nadia Comaneci got perfect 10s at the Olympics in Montreal in 1976; few can name Bela Karolyi, the man who helped her elevate her performance to that height).

Obviously, the corporate world is a little different from the world of world-class sports and music stars. But only a little. We value performance just as much. We measure it just as obsessively as anyone in a ball cap with a whistle around his neck measures the performance of his team. And, just as in sports or in a band, while we need to address the team as a whole and coordinate its elements, performance happens one individual at a time. So why wouldn’t we address it that way?

Perks are about “we”; coaching is about “me.”

It’s all about the individual. This is why perks will never be the key differentiator. Perks are about the “we” — the whole company, together. “We” is a great thing. It’s important. But by definition, it’s not differentiated. Sure, you can differentiate yourself from the company down the street by offering better food, or laundry service, or even — I am not making this up — “life creation insurance.” (Because if you work here, you’re going to be too busy innovating to think about having kids just yet; tech magnets such as Apple and are now footing the bill for IVF, sperm donors and egg freezing.)

But what about differentiating each person and the unique strengths he or she has to offer? Investment in “we” is great. But where is the investment in “me”?

Coaching — specifically strengths-based coaching — is that investment. It is the surest, most direct way to help people make their greatest contribution and do their best work. At the risk of sounding like Dr. Seuss, it helps “me” be the best “me” I can be. It creates an overall culture for your organization that is the aggregate of myriad unique micro-cultures, one for each person. Because each person is able, with the help of a coach, to define and create the conditions under which he or she is not only productive and engaged, but fulfilled.


This personal, one-size-fits-one strengths-based approach makes as much sense in the corporate world as it does on a sports field. In both environments, team success is achieved by maximizing the impact of the individual. Strengths-based coaching focuses on individuals who want to take responsibility for becoming a more powerful contributor, and it emphasizes that their key areas of opportunity are their strengths, not their weaknesses. Every single person has unique gifts that can be leveraged to benefit both that individual, and the team. 


The job of the coach is to work with the individual to draw those gifts out, apply them to situational challenges and opportunities, and create the goals and action plans that will help to realize his or her potential.

Strengths-based coaching is like performance insurance.

Innovative organizations that already invest in coaching for their team leaders don’t consider it a “perk.” They consider it a “must,” because the performance of team leaders drives the performance of the entire organization. Organizations that know this consider coaching a way to retain, motivate and develop their most critical talent: their team leaders. To take just one example, 

Facebook has made strengths-based coaching an integral part of its culture. We have had the privilege of partnering with them over the past five years to weave the strengths approach into their management training. As part of that training, they have emphasized the importance of strengths-based coaching for their people managers, understanding that coaching team leaders lays the foundation for building stronger teams.

The bottom line? Competing in the perks war is necessary, but not sufficient. A tangible, personal investment in your people is the best way to differentiate your culture. And nothing is a more effective, more personal investment than coaching. Coaching is more about retention than remediation. Helicopter rides and frozen eggs may get attention and headlines, but they won’t retain top talent. Coaching will.

This article was originally published on www.tmbc.com on 27 April 2015.

How you can overcome the detrimental impact of your weaknesses, to better build on your Strengths

by Dries Lombaard, Strategic Leadership Institute

Obviously the ultimate goal and sensible wisdom is to always focus on your natural talents and increasing their impact as strengths.  You cannot and should not ignore your weaknesses.  Your weaknesses are those activities filled with the type of thinking, emotions or behaviors, which naturally drains you – very much the same as "kryptonite" steals the energy from Superman.

Ignoring these detriments will never be the answer to excelling in your Strengths. But, you also cannot afford to spend too much time and energy on managing those weaknesses, as the logical result won’t be Strengths-based excellence and results.

Furthermore, weakness is not the only problem when it comes to flowing in your talents.  I found that “strengths running wild” can cause a lot more damage and detriment than passive weaknesses.  When it come to your talents, you cannot “switch them off” – and you should never attempt to, as you will fail.  But, each strength has a volume knob.  You can turn the specific strength-volume up or down as needed.  At times a specific strength (or a combination) may need to be on full blast.  In other situations you need to turn it down to maybe become hardly audible….or simply a soft background tune.   We call this “managing your talents well”, and it is the absolute key to a strengths-based life or career.

In my experience as a professional Strengths Coach and Talent Advisor, I adopted a “Four S” approach as a tool to advise someone stuck within their weaknesses, or just as possible, stuck in a position for which they simply do not have the right mix of natural talent to sustainably support them from inside.  These Four “S’s” form a very practical and simple way to limit the detriment caused by either weaknesses or by mismanaged talents.

First “S” – Stop doing it.

It is interesting how quick people are to respond to this advice with a “that’s simply not possible”.  Agreed, sometimes it won’t be possible to get out of a job, out of a relationship or out of a detrimental situation.  But on the other hand, if you ask any person who successfully build on their strengths and limit the impact of their weaknesses, they will tell you about high risk moves and sacrifices they made in order to achieve a strengths-filled life.   And very often it was to say "no", walk away or - yes - to even resign.  Because I have done some of this myself more than once in my life and career, I am not ignorant about the risk, the consequences and the implication.  Therefor this decision should be considered very carefully. 

 On the other hand, I am also convinced that the word and negative label “quitting” is very unfortunate.  Quitting is not per definition foolish, bad or failure.  It is the timing and reason behind quitting that makes is foolish or wise, good or bad or a success or a failure.  Contrary to conventional opinion, I do not believe in the "never quit" slogan.  Wisdom is to know when to quit, and when not to.  I believe you can “quit wisely.”  And please remember – quitting is not always as radical as you are made to believe.  You can, for instance, quit within your job, relationship or venture without quitting the job, relationship or venture.  Think about this…. Quitting does not always imply finality.

So do not let yourself (or someone else) get off too easy when you consider simply stopping going down the road you are on.  You may even be surprised at the reaction of others if you decide to stop going down the road you are on.  Some won’t even notice.  Others will praise you for doing it (and may even be relieved!)  Yes, you will also be criticized – but honestly, that will be the case even when you carry on also, as you know that you are already not performing on that road.

Second “S” – Skill can pull you through.

Talent is not the same as skill.  You can acquire skill in an area for which you have simply no talent – and thus also no appetite.  That is why you get people who are excellent in what they do, but who simultaneously hate what they do.

The ultimate aim in life is to acquire the type of skills that will align with your talents, thus turning it into strengths.   But skill can also be the key to help you get out of weakness traps or “detriment spirals”.  If you identify specific skills to make up for lack of talent, you can really overcome tricky situations and reach goals – without sacrificing your strengths focus in the process.

For instance, if you are lacking executing talents supporting you in natural goal-setting and time-management (like Achiever, Arranger, Focus or Discipline to name a few) you may consider investing in some skills when it comes to time-management, planning and goal setting.  All of these qualities can be enhanced with skills, and there are plentiful books, people and organizations available that specialize in teaching these skills.  

 Or, if you lack the talents and energy to flow with more personal and intimate relational situations which require talents like Empathy, Individualization, Harmony or Relator, you can always spend time acquiring much needed relational skills through coaching, counseling, reading more on the dynamics behind it and becoming more aware of how it functions.  The knowledge and skill will carry you far when it comes to your stretch within emotional or relational situations.  But of course, those situations will always have a draining effect on you, and you won’t ever be as natural within that space than someone who are wired for it.

Please understand me clearly:  I do not with this advice suggest that you can or should do anything by simply acquiring the skill.  I firmly believe that success in life is not about the attitude “I can do anything I set my mind to” (even if there is some truth to it), but rather about “I should do very specific things that I am naturally talented to do”. If  you do not have an appetite or natural sense to, for instance, do time management well and with high energy and persistence, you will also find it a stretch and pretty difficult to acquire the skill to do it. But you still can. And it can help you a lot.   

Having the skills will never turn those activities into high-energy flow areas for you, but it can help you getting to a level where it is no longer such a detriment that it becomes an obstacle in your career, relationships or personal goals.  It may even save you form some very embarrassing moments.

Third “S” – Support is crucial to win.

A Strengths-based mindset always think as follows: “Who can support me with their Strengths in the areas where I am weak?"  It is impossible to live a Strengths-based life alone.   Support is crucial to win.

There are nearly always people close to you – colleagues, friends, family or partners – who are naturally strong where you are weak.  There are those energized by execution of tasks and finishing it in time, even if that is like “kryptonite”, or a blind-spot to you.  Your colleague may thrive in relational interaction even if you do not.  Your partner may be a natural strategic thinker, great with ideas or analytically brilliant, even if that area is a complete minefield to you.  There are those around you who can influence people in a way that will astonish you, and you may desperately need them at your side.

I followed with interest over my years as a Strength Coach the way people naturally and mostly unknowingly “tap” into the natural talents of those around them.  As humans we are mostly drawn to those who are strong in areas where we are weak….(maybe that is exactly why opposites attract, right?).  Thus you will find that you were maybe already seeking out support from others who are strong in areas of your weakness.  But even if this is the case, you will raise the bar of energy and excellence for them and you if you do it with more intention.  If you approach them with confidence, which may reveal your vulnerability, but at the same time celebrate their strengths.

That brings me to the most important part of seeking support in your weakness: being vulnerable.  Brene Brown (www.brenebrown.com) brought the importance of vulnerability to light with her books (especially “Daring Greatly”, and talks.  One of her powerful quotes:  “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”

What is the best way to be vulnerable, getting support you need? 

I have one word:  “Ask.”

Fourth “S” – Situational talent application is wise.

Use your talents wisely.  Talent that aligns with the activity, situation or challenge becomes real Strengths.  For talent to be strength it needs to flow within the situation of challenge for which it was made.

Managing your talents – both the strengths and weaknesses, means managing the situation. Managing the situation comes down to the choices you make:  to engage or disengage, to offer your help or to say no when asked, to simply push through with grid or to quit wisely.  We often do not see the way we choose the situation we find ourselves in.  How often do I here the comment “But I have / had no choice…”  In almost all instances that turns out as a lie.  You always have some choice – if it is not directed towards creating circumstance, it definitely is towards reacting to circumstance.  Knowing the best situations where your talents can play and flow will guide your choices towards playing to your strengths – and embracing your weaknesses as vulnerability not to be ashamed of.

People often only realize their limitations when they are already in a situation.  We call that “learning”.  How else will you know where your strengths fade and your weakness starts?  If you do not learn from it, you are a fool. Next time, that same learning leads to wise situational decisions.

Some talent themes find this an extremely difficult scenario to get out of – and an easy predicament to get into.  I can think of Responsibility, Self-Assurance, Achiever, Activator and Competition, just to name a few.  On the flip side, some talents won’t get to learn from situational application, as they may be far too hesitant to take the risk.  Think of Deliberative, Intellection, Analytical or even Harmony as a couple of examples.

The point is: choose your scenarios carefully.  Sometimes risk, sometimes don’t.  You always have a choice – even if the situation was not your choice. Play to your strengths within the situation. Apply your talents with wisdom.

As my good friend and mentor DeAnna Murphy (www.unlockingstrengths.com)  taught me, you need to be confident in your strengths, but vulnerable in your weaknesses. Strengths built confidence. Weaknesses identifies vulnerability.  The ultimate Strengths-based life or career is one of confident-vulnerability.  I found that the "Four S" approach is a practical way to accomplish this, or to guide others.

Try it.

Dries Lombaard is the co-owner of Strategic Leadership Institute and NeuWorx, and has more than 7000 hours of Strengths Coaching experience over the last decade.  He is leading a vibrant and growing network of Strengths Coaches in Southern Africa, and works with corporate and multinational leadership and management teams and C-level leaders as a Strengths Coach and training facilitator.