Category Archives: strengths

I learned something today that simultaneously rocked my world and shored up the foundation of my self-understanding.

I’m always on the lookout for opportunities to spend more time in a classroom as the instructor instead of the student, so I was interested when I found out that the “Thrive” themed housing group for freshman at Virginia Tech was taking applications from upper classmen to be instructors.  Part of the Thrive community description says:

This all sounds great to me, so I did some more digging.  One of the questions on the instructor application says “I am familiar with StrengthsQuestand/or I know my Top 5 talent themes?”  Well, I thought, what are my top five talent themes?  Then I discovered the Clifton StrenghtsFinder (or at least a reasonable approximation on a free website).  The result is what has caused all of this commotion.

My top strengths are:

Learner (100%) – Has a great desire to learn and wants to continually improve.

Intellection (100%) – Is characterized by intellectual activity.

Analytical (100%) – Searches for reasons and causes.

Input (100%) – Has a craving to know more.

Responsibility (92%) – Takes psychological ownership of what they say and do.

Relator (92%) – Enjoys close relationships with others.

Ideation (92%) – Is fascinated by ideas.

Restorative (92%) – Is adept at dealing with problems.

Belief (92%) – Has certain core values that are unchanging.

To me this is all well and good, and not just because I’m a data addict (Input).  After seven years in consulting I returned to grad school with an intent to never leave academia again, because on some level I recognized my need to be constantly learning and delving; I also recognized that I wasn’t going to find that along the career path I was on.  I appreciate that the test acknowledges my sense of responsibility for the things that I do, and it even knows that it’s important to me to feel close to others; yay test!  Now for the bad news, the test doesn’t just tell you just your strengths; it lists ALL of the categories, and tells you how well each one matches you…

My top weaknesses are: (drumroll please)

Inclusiveness (42%) – Is accepting of others.

Harmony (42%) – Looks for consensus.

Winning Others Over (50%) – Loves the challenge of meeting new people and winning them over.

Positivity (50%) – Has an enthusiasm that is contagious.

Context (67%) – Enjoys thinking about the past.

Individualization (67%) – Intrigued by the unique qualities of each person.

Fairness (67%) – Is keenly aware of the need to treat people the same.

Adaptability (67%) – Prefers to ‘go with the flow.’

I found this list to be extremely difficult to read; likely because my sense of responsibility makes me own up to the fact that to some extent this is all true.  When I come up against someone who has a strongly conflicting viewpoint from mine, I don’t look for consensus, and I don’t try to win them over, I just move on.  I am not able to bend my will to the will of others in order to ‘go with the flow,’ nor do I feel that everyone deserves to be treated the same regardless of how they behave.  A ten-minute multiple-choice test was able to identify the strengths and flaws in my personality that took me thirty years to come to terms with.

So what comes next?

Honestly I’m not sure that I want to “fix” my weak areas.  At the heart of the problem is that I feel so strongly about my core belief of learning is life / life is learning that I am often unable to relate to people who don’t incorporate wonder as part of their world-view.  I feel that, instead of being unaccepting of others, I am unaccepting of others who are close-minded.  Instead of winning others over to open mindedness, I’m more likely to just move on to the next person and hope they are different.  Instead of feeling like all people should be treated the same, I feel that people who don’t want to learn can be left to the lives they’re currently leading, and I’d rather go find a community where we can be inspired together.  I recognize that there are people in education who tirelessly work to engage every student in the material, but I unfortunately can’t count myself among them.  Perhaps it’s that 50% score in positivity that’s coming into play combined with the 92% score in responsibility; I believe that everyone is responsible for their own thoughts/actions, and I don’t believe that goodness comes naturally to every (adult) human being.  As I reflect on it, I’m a little bit amazed at how strongly I connect the ideas of “goodness” and “learner” in my mind.

So what about that freshman course I was going to apply to teach?  I think I’ll give it a pass, and let someone more qualified take it on.  I am confident that I’m the right choice to teach content-intense courses in my profession in a way that’s relatable to my students; showing them how it applies to their lives/career and getting them involved in the world of engineering knowledge.  However, I am not confident in my ability to help freshmen to create a community where they “build confidence and form meaningful relationships with their hall mates.”

Based on my experiences as a freshman in college I should perhaps be signing up to audit the course instead of teach it.  Maybe they could wheel me out on the first day of the lecture and I could explain to the students what the warning signs are of major depressive disorder; what it feels like to go from a 3.5 in your first semester to a 1.9 in the next (it would have been a 1.5 without that A in Poetry), and how it’s not healthy to drop down to 125 pounds when you’re 5’10” tall because you didn’t feel like eating.  Making sure that freshmen have a positive experience and that no-one drops through the cracks is something that’s near and dear to my heart; in part because no-one was there to catch me when I was falling.  Perhaps I have a way to go yet before I can summon up enough positivity to do it responsibly.