Podcast 6: Leading From Strengths; Becoming Your Best

The Bold & Courageous Leader Podcast: Episode 6

Welcome to this episode of the Bold & Courageous Leader Podcast. Today, Andee and I have a guest with us to talk about the Clifton Strengths Finder Assessment and how leaders can use it to develop their own Bold & Courageous leadership style. Suzanne Bandy works with adults and youth in ministry settings helping them to discover and develop their strengths. She also has a proven team-oriented leadership ability that focuses on building relationships that produce strong partnerships. Suzanne values the importance of always looking for the most effective strategies and systems for empowering people. And knowing Suzanne, as Andee and I do, we know that is because she is working out of her own strengths. Suzanne, welcome to the podcast.

Suzanne: Hello. Good to be here.

Rhonda: Could you tell us a little bit more about what you are doing now and how the Clifton Strengths Finder Assessment is part of what you do?

Suzanne: Sure. First and foremost, this job more or less, was created because I know my strengths. So the that job that I’m currently doing is called Director of Equipping at a church in Leipsic, Ohio. I’ve been here about a year. But, as I said, it was created, more or less, out of my strengths because as I talked with the Senior Pastor we wanted to develop something that we knew that could be utilized well for the church that I would have a passion and a draw to and so that’s what it’s all about. The first project that I had was with the leadership team, for them to learn their strengths, using the Clifton Strengths Finder Assessment and then that’s how we get to know each other and how we operate. So, that’s what this whole Director of Equipping leadership position is about. Working with all the members of the church to help them discover who they are, both through spiritual gifts and Strengths Finder Assessment, in a variety of ways. And helping them, then to serve out of their passion and their calling and their strengths.

Rhonda: Suzanne, can you tell us a little about your story? How did you come to the place where you currently are?

Suzanne: Well it really started when I was attending Bethel Seminary. We were in a leadership class and also along with class we did the Strengths Finder Assessment. I would say at that point I didn’t have a really good sense of who I was. I had a sense of the things that I was generally good at but not necessarily how I operate in everything I do and that’s what the Strengths Finder Assessment is really about, is helping you figure out and understand whenever you approach anything, how do you approach it in your most natural way? And so we took the Strengths Finder Assessment and I found out that my number one strength was called harmony, which was so life-giving to me because I did not understand how I used those gifts. I saw those all as my weaknesses, to tell you the truth. Everything that I did that maybe I thought was wishy-washy or how I approached things I always thought this was more of a weakness because I didn’t have more definitive answers for people but what I discovered is that this was really more of a strength. That harmony strength was a bridge-builder. It was a person who could sit in between two people and hear both sides of the story, their stories and bring them together. Or maybe within a ministry context, that’s helping you to get everyone on the same page, helping them go in the same direction because you can bring all of these different, varying views together to be that bridge builder and I never understood that about who I was. But once I really understood that was really strength, then I could start building on it. So it was just so life-giving to me to then understand my natural inclinations of why I would do what I did and how that was a strength and not a weakness.

Andee: Obviously, you were aware of your calling. You were already in seminary.  You know, you were being called to a ministerial role but the Strengths Finder is not limited in any way to the religious community. As you have been living this out in your profession and your calling, you’ve been leading others to do the same. You’ve led countless people through Strengths Finder and you’ve taught on it so much. How do you help people incorporate that into the marketplace? Because, what I heard you say was you learned that the value in Strengths Finder is learning that as you approach anything in your most natural way…

Suzanne: It applies to any part of your life, every part of your life, not just related to calling. Now, what I found is that I understood then better how it fit into my calling which happened simultaneously with that leadership class in seminary. In taking the Strengths Finder, I’m in this leadership class, that’s when I discovered the scripture Ephesians 4:11-13 “to equip the saints for service” and so all of those things came together for me at that point all at once. Now, in answer to Andee’s question, I think that’s the same kind of thing you’re doing when you’re working with people, in my case within the context of the church, and I’m helping them discover who they are and that includes using the Strengths Finder Assessment. It should just naturally open up the door then for them to start to see how these strengths work in every area of their life not just within what I do at church because really serving, your calling can be all of those things. It can be what I do at work and my passion that God’s leading me to be. It can be the same thing. In my case they’re the same thing but I think of one gal at a previous church that I worked at. She was a CPO for a hospital and definitely did very, very well there but as a calling within the ministry, she loved children. She actually didn’t want to work with numbers at all because she worked with them all day long but her strengths applied at both places. They weren’t limited to one or the other and I can’t off-hand remember what some of her strengths were, I know responsibility was one of them. So whatever she does, she does wholeheartedly because she is committed to it and she will fulfill it because responsibility is high on her list of strengths.

Rhonda: Which is a good thing in both the CPO role and with working with children and so responsibility would be a foundational strength for both of those different ways of using your strengths. That’s a really cool way of exploring this because we can use strengths, that’s one of the things I like about Strengths Finder, because strength is not something that is limited to a specific place or a specific area of utilization. It can be used in all kinds of places and ways, depending on what your passions are.

Suzanne: Right.

Rhonda: Suzanne, having known some of your story, I know that you worked in the marketplace before you moved into the church. And so, when you started to understand more of your primary strength of harmony, were there ways, as you reflected back on it, were there ways that you could see that you used that in your roles in the marketplace, before moving into the role in the church? Because we are called to either one depending on our space and time in our life.

Suzanne: That’s interesting. I don’t know that I’ve really reflected back on the marketplace a lot and how I used that when I was with the Convention and Visitors Bureau but I know it was there. It was definitely always that hearing the two sides of the stories or trying to come up with an answer and, like I said, I thought it was a weakness back then. So, I would be compromising if I gave into somebody and so I would see it as a weakness because I was compromising but really what I was doing was trying to see both sides and go that direction. So that was true, and again, in any place that I’ve worked. But better now, I guess I don’t reflect back on it as much in the marketplace because I didn’t understand it clearly then. I didn’t know who I was then. If I went back into that role now and utilized it, understanding it as a strength, I’m sure it would play out very differently than it did because of me understanding the strengths and how to build on those. And that’s the important part, because sometimes when you discover what your strength is and you didn’t ever think of it as a strength, now you spend more intentional time searching for ways to use it…

Andee: building it. Marcus Buckingham talks about building on your strengths not spending.

Suzanne: Yes.

Andee: So much we’re told you need to compensate for your weaknesses. You need to work and improve your weaknesses. The whole premise of Strengths Finder, is build on your strengths and find somebody else who’s strengths compensate for your weaknesses.

Suzanne: Right. There are several books out there related to Strengths Finder and one of them is Strengths Based Leadership and that one talks a lot about putting together a team of people that have a variety of those strengths because we’re not, we talk about being well-balanced, but really we don’t want to be well-balanced. We want to do what we do well and we want to build on doing that, build on our strengths and then bring other people alongside of us that help compliment and help bring the whole team together. And that’s then one of the other things that we can do within our ministry context or within the marketplace, is to put together teams that then get us all working really well so we have a well-balanced team, not necessarily well-balanced people.

Andee: Amen.

Suzanne: So those teams then, can get so much more done than one person on their own.

Andee: Gee that sounds an awful lot like 1^st Corinthians:12.

Suzanne: Doesn’t it though? Paul talks about that very well. He really teaches us all about using our strengths and our gifts.

Andee: That’s right.

Suzanne: Working together.

Rhonda: He just didn’t know the terminology at that point in time.

Andee: The word he uses is gifts but it’s the same thing.

Rhonda: So, can you talk to us a little about using our strengths and building a team and valuing the strengths of the others on your team, and how the Strengths Finder, how the assessment and being a leader who understands that can really bring value as a leader?

Suzanne: Well, with the Strengths Based Leadership, I have the book in front of me.

Rhonda: With all those little post-it notes too. I just saw all of your little post-it notes, that’s awesome.

Suzanne: So if you’re looking to put together a good team that’s going to be really well-balanced, there’s some areas that you can look for. In that book, Strengths Based Leadership, they put the strengths under four different areas called; executing, influencing, relationship building and strategic thinking. So for instance, myself, I actually have a strength in three of the four areas, so I can, to a degree, it has some balance, but I may be missing, for instance, the strategic thinking piece. So, I really need to find somebody who falls into that category, that has some real strategic thinking abilities to help me to think through and get us focused. Just like you and Andee at the beginning of our session, which I know our listeners didn’t hear that, but Andee was helping us get on task.

Rhonda: Exactly.

Suzanne: That made us more balanced. It get us headed together and it helps us accomplish more in a shorter amount of time. So, that’s what I would be looking for is somebody to have that strategic thinking and come alongside of me and help me work out the details that I might not be able to work out on my own.

Rhonda: And you know why Andee was doing that? Because, I don’t, if I look at my strengths in those categories, I have none in the executing areas. I need Andee to keep me on task.

Suzanne: That’s a perfect example of how if we put together those teams that have varying degrees of each of those because no one is going to fall into just one, but nobody is going to have everything.

Andee: Right.

Suzanne: So, we have to build the teams with the different pieces just like Paul says in Corinthians, so that we have all the body parts there, so that we are working together in unity to bring it all together.

Rhonda: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Andee: The glorious thing about this is that it makes everybody’s role, everybody’s job so much more effective and so much more enjoyable.

Suzanne: Right.

Andee: We’re not constantly trying to compensate for that which we’re just not wired to produce and instead, we can look to the other person on the team, or the other people on the team and just really celebrate their contribution and what they’re accomplishing as we all work together. It’s really great way to work in the marketplace, or in your home or in the church. Anytime you’ve got something that you need to accomplish and you’ve got other people involved in it, it’s just, it’s much more productive and it’s much more fun and it’s certainly much more Biblical.

Rhonda: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts also when we bring the people together, in ministry or in the marketplace, it doesn’t matter where we’re talking about doing this. We can make a bigger impact if we’re all contributing our strengths to where we know we’re all trying to go. And Suzanne, you were talking about getting people all going in the same direction, and I think that was part of your harmony strength.

Suzanne: Right. Correct.

Rhonda: And when we have everybody going in the same direction, I can’t claim to have the harmony strength, God knows that’s probably not my strength, but if we have somebody that has that harmony strength then we can plug in and figure out how we’re all moving forward together, then we can make a much bigger impact.

Suzanne: Oh yeah, much bigger.

Rhonda: as a team. Our podcast is called the Bold & Courageous Leader podcast and I was wondering if you have seen in having people identify and step more into their strengths, times when people have been more Bold & Courageous because they are working in their strengths, than they might have been before they understood that?

Suzanne: I am the perfect example of being more, Bold & Courageous now because I understand my strengths and that is because I have worked on understanding that harmony allows me to be, that’s how I move things forward. You know how sometimes you look at other people and you think, I wish I could do it that way because they can get us to do what no one else can get us to do. But I now understand that the gifts, the strengths that I have been given do help us to get somewhere, but I use it in a capacity that is helpful to us in that way, such as the bridge-builder. If I can stand up in front of a group of people, a team of people and help them figure out what the purpose of their ministry, or the purpose of their business or whatever it may be, I can do that now boldly knowing that that’s my role and embrace that fully, when before I might have been more, timid about it because I didn’t see it as a strength. So, definitely Bold & Courageous, you can step out and fully embrace who you are and not apologize for it, not try to say, “Oh, I’m sorry I did it that way. I know that’s not the way you do it.” It isn’t the way the other person does it and you don’t want to try to be the other person. Just like, again, how Paul says in Corinthians, I don’t want to be the ear if I’m the eye. I don’t want to be the arm if I’m the heart. I need to boldly and courageously embrace who God made me to be and step out in that.

Rhonda: Well said. Well said. I think that we may have been part of the process of witnessing that sense of confidence become, actually I don’t think, I know, because Andee and Suzanne and I all did a class called The Equipping Leader and that was about the same time when you really stepping into your strengths, wasn’t it?

Suzanne: Uh hmm.

Rhonda: So we did get to witness you becoming much more, Bold & Courageous in your leadership style because you were starting to understand how God had wired you for leadership and that you really were wired for leadership. It’s just your leadership style looked a little bit different because of who you were created. But that’s just, using your strength of harmony as an example, that’s one that some people might not see as being “leadership strength,” because it’s the bridge-building, but if bridge-building is not leadership, I don’t know what is.

Suzanne: Correct.

Rhonda: Because we have to be able to work with others and trying to get everyone going in the same direction, that’s really an important role of the leader, is figuring out how do I get all of these different people with all of these different perspectives to go in the same direction.

Andee: I think to be Bold & Courageous is to some degree to get past fear. I mean, that’s just part and parcel of the process and understanding, what I’m hearing you say, Suzanne, is that understanding your strengths really helped you get around your fear of not being what somebody else wanted or expected you to be, and rather living out of your strengths, your God-given design, your masterpiece work that God created you to be.

Suzanne: Yep, that’s exactly what I was saying and also I’ll add that I went to a Strengths Finder conference, you could call it a workshop, and gal who was sitting next to me, her strength was I think achiever and achievers are, they are driven people. Everything is about a list and marking it off the list and if they don’t have a list, they don’t know what to do.

Rhonda: Not that we’re judging achievers or anything.

Suzanne: No. They are and that’s a good thing because they get a lot accomplished because of that strength.

Rhonda: Right.

Suzanne: So, she was sitting next to me and she found out my top strength was harmony and she just cringed because she was working with somebody who had harmony and she didn’t like this person. She didn’t like how they operated. She found them to be, she didn’t get the whole two different views. She didn’t understand how that person was helpful to the team. And after meeting me and I talked about how that strength would play out in my workplace and in my life, she then was able to look at that strength of harmony very differently. So the point being, that as we develop our own strengths and then also learn about other’s strengths we can play better together.

Andee: Exactly.

Suzanne: We can be a team together because we understand each other.

Rhonda: So important.

Suzanne: It was helpful to her. I would hope that would mean so was able to go back to her job, and she was the boss, that I hope it went back and that she could accept that team player a little better for who she was and maybe allow her to live in that strength a little bit more because she didn’t understand it and embrace it. And so I hope she was able to after having met me and having that discussion and having that lightbulb moment.

Andee: Well, I think just understanding strengths other than your own and how they work enables you to be a better communicator.

Suzanne: Yes.

Andee: If I know that person that I’m working with has the strength of achiever and needs the list, needs to be able to check things off the list, then as a leader I want to help them build their list and I want to be certain that they are having the satisfaction of checking things off because I know that will make them more effective and happier in the long run. So, it’s not just about knowing your own strengths but it’s also knowing how your strengths work with the other person.

Rhonda: That’s so important.

Suzanne: Yes.

Rhonda: Because if you’re going to be a leader and you’re leading a team, even as a team member, you need to honor the strengths of the others. But especially as the leader of the team because you’re modeling how everyone else is going to interact together on the team. To honor the strengths of those around you and to call out what they bring to the organization, to your team, is really one of your roles as the leader, to call forth what those strengths are.

Andee: Yes.

Rhonda: So that the others have the opportunity to really utilize them well for team. So, that’s an important thing that we as leaders, we need to be very aware of. So, Suzanne, one more thing I’d like to have you address a little bit, because we’ve been talking about what our top strengths are, and because my top strength is maximizer, I want to make sure that we get every possible thing in that we can here. For most people go through the Strengths Finder Assessment, they get their top five strengths and so we’re spending a lot of time in our top strengths but those other ones that are in our top five are ones that definitely come into play. I look at my top five strengths and some of them at times can really become almost, they can almost overwhelm my strength of maximizer which my family probably wishes I would overwhelm it more often because maximizer can be a real pain in the petutes weakness when you overuse it. Can you talk about the concept of the top five strengths and how they might interact with each other?

Suzanne: The top five strengths definitely interact and even your sixth, and seventh and even eighth strength will show up at times. Depending on the things that you were doing and trying to accomplish there are times, obviously, when those will come into play. I have maximizer too and arranger and so those are things that are definitely about getting things done in the best way possible. And those in interplay with the bridge-builder, the harmony person in such a way that it’s still about getting things accomplished in the best way. Harmony, just might alone spend all it’s time worrying about the relationship of the people and that they understand each other and not get anywhere if you just spend all of your time there. So, you have to have the other top five, the other strengths in there to move you in other directions as well. To not leave you stifled in any one particular place and you should embrace all of yours and spend time in each one of them kind of figuring out how they help you to operate within your roles both in the workplace and in life in general. None of them are stand-alone. They all interact, all of them are part of who you are and you want them to be working together and building each piece of them and understanding each one of them and their dark side, so to speak.

Rhonda: Absolutely, and there is a dark side. This is true.

Suzanne: There is but as you said, your family doesn’t want you to be in the maximizer mode all of the time. They want to see some of that other come into play too.

Rhonda: So true.

Suzanne: It makes life a little more interesting, as well. They definitely come into play but one of the things I want to add here is you said they only show you your top five and in some cases, I have my whole list of thirty-four, because of some of the training I have done but I don’t want to pay attention to all of that top ten even. I don’t want to pay attention to any of that because that would be focusing on my weaknesses. I want to concentrate on building those top five strengths, spending some time really understanding them and how they’re going to play out in my own life, and in my workplace in interaction with the other people within my team.

Rhonda: Do you feel that that then brings you to the place of your highest possibilities by focusing on these top five strengths because you’re leveraging those places that you are naturally the best anyway?

Suzanne: Yes. Yes. I think when you spend the time building those, it just allows you the freedom to, again, as we said earlier, be who you are. Live in those, but live in those in a much better place than before when you didn’t necessarily understand them totally in embracing them and moving you forward. I even chose when I got to my current position to decline a part of ministry that they had offered me, that I had experience in, but my strengths did not play out as well in that area of ministry. Besides the fact that it just was no longer a passion of mine but if I can focus those top strengths and leverage them in an area of my passion, oh the things that we can accomplish when we do that.

Rhonda: And that’s a really good point. Not to mention the fact that, one of the things that Michael Hyatt, a Michael Hyatt flashed in my mind as we were talking about this. He talks about when we are trying to do things that really aren’t in our wheelhouse, in our area of strength, we’re taking away from someone else their opportunity to do that. And especially when you’re in a role that, the role that you are in where you are empowering and equipping others to use their strengths, to take on a role that really isn’t a strength of yours is withholding from someone else the opportunity to do what is theirs to do, what may be their masterpiece work that they should be doing.

Suzanne: Yes. And add to that if you are in a role that isn’t playing well with your strengths or that you’re not passionate about, the frustration level, not that you’re not going to get frustrated in jobs, you are, and no matter if you are living out of your strengths or not when you are in a place where you’re not being able to live out of your strengths and contribute out of your strengths, the frustration level raises so high. So for everybody, it’s so much better when you get them in that right place and empower them to live in that strength.

Rhonda: That’s absolutely true and as leaders, one of our roles is to help others understand that they’re going to be able to make their best contribution in their strengths.

Suzanne: Yes.

Rhonda: Because that’s something that we’re still working on, that message of people understanding that you’re going to make your best contribution in your strengths and to give them the freedom of moving into those spaces, whether that means that they can stay where they are with you or whether that means that you help them find the next place that is really the good place for them to be.

Suzanne: Right.

Rhonda: Suzanne, we thank you so much for joining Andee and me today for this podcast and we look forward to following up with folks who have listened to the podcasts. We’re going to share the information about the book Strengths Based Leadership, in our show notes and Suzanne we hope to have you back again someday to talk more about strengths and how that might be used not only just in ministry, but in the workplace.

To find out more about today’s topic, get downloads of our previous podcasts or to learn how you too can become a Bold & Courageous leader, visit rhondapeterson.com. Our ever-growing community is waiting for you. If you liked today’s show, there are three things you can do. You can subscribe to the podcasts on iTunes or Stitcher. You can give us a rating or a review on iTunes. The subscriptions and ratings help others to find us more easily. And you can help us get the word out by sharing the podcast with your friends. This is Rhonda Peterson, your Bold & Courageous Leader Coach. Thank you for listening. We’ll see you for the next Bold & Courageous Leader Podcast.

Resources mentioned in today’s podcast:

Strengths Based Leadership, by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie