10 Essential Questions to Help You Identify Your Team’s Strengths!

Many people can easily reel off their flaws and faults and yet stumble when asked, “So, what do you think your strengths are?” Which is why helping people see their own strengths is a great service we can perform for our ourselves and our team members.

Marianne Williamson said, “We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?”

Who indeed? Imagine if everyone in the world played to their strengths in their lives. Imagine if you and your team consciously used their strengths and customised their work and/or play to their talents…

So, here are 10 Essential Questions to Help Your Team Identify Their Strengths:

1. “What are three of your greatest strengths?” (A simple starter to ease them in!)
2. “Tell me about some of the biggest challenges in your life? How did you overcome them?”
3. “What do you like about yourself?”(You can also ask yourself, “What doIlike about my client?”)
4. “What do you enjoy doing?”(We usually enjoy what we are good at!)
5. What do you yearn to do?(Yearnings suggest possible talents!)
6. “What are some unusual skills you have?”(The word ‘unusual’ forces them to think what’s different about themselves — make sure to delve deeper to find the underlying strength/s)
7. “What are you proud of in your life?”
8. “Tell me about your first achievement.”(Encourage them to share even it seems boring or small now — this gives pointers to early success — and strengths)
9. “What would not be like it is — had you not been part of it?”(eg. a work or volunteer effort)
10. What do you get complimented on most?(This is a great question because it assumes they GET complimented — and asks what is most FREQUENTLY mentioned)
    Tip: Get into the detail. Look for things they may have glossed over and drill your clients down to SPECIFICS. Often our strengths are so taken for granted that they may not even have registered!

Another Tip: Give positive feedback.”So, how did you do that, because I wouldn’t know where to start!” Again, look for the strengths in the DETAILS of how they did it.

To wrap up: At the end of the questioning and drilling into details, summarise the overarching strengths and themes you noticed for your team members. Acknowledge and celebrate your them — and watch them glow!

Originally published at Leadership AdvantEdge.