Discovering Your Strengths - The Responsibility Strength

Of all of the psychometric tools available, Gallup’s StrengthsFinder is one of the most helpful. The thirty minute on line assessment almost instantly finds a persons top five strengths. Many of those who take the StrengthsFinder, say how surprised they are at the accuracy of their strength results and how useful their reports are in confirming what they had suspected, but had never read about themselves before. And the beauty of the StrengthsFinder approach is that almost all people benefit from having their top 5 strengths revealed to them and few are ever disappointed !

Over 12 million people, globally, have taken StrengthsFinder, and have greater insight of how they can improve their performance by focussing on the things that come easy and they excel at. Weaknesses aren’t to be ignored too, but strategies to manage them are needed to allow the balance between time spent in strengths is balanced with time spent with our weaknesses. The assessment has identified the top 34 strengths in us and has given each a theme name. These range from Achiever (someone who likes to gets things done) to Winning Others Over, otherwise know as W.O.O. (someone who can influence and convince others to their way of thinking). Imagine someone who has both in their top 5, they would either consistently bring more and more people over to their ways of thinking or convince others of how much they were achieving. Both could be great outcomes, but may only be realized through being firstly aware of their top 5 and then taking proactive action to work them together. Standout performance is achieved when top strengths are worked together.

Responsibility 

One of my previous articles was published in April, which was focused on Achiever, the highest occurring strength in the male population of the 12 million that Gallup has tested. Turning to the female population, the highest occurring strength in females is Responsibility.

People high in Responsibility work hard to fulfill all of their responsibilities and keep their word to others. They are conscientious, their driver is for doing things right and they have impeccable ethics. These characteristics combine to create a reputation for being utterly dependable. They are the sort of people who answer their emails at night and weekends. They are the first in the office and often the last to leave and switch off the lights. So they are brilliant employees. But they need to take care and be taken care of, because they are so conscientious.

People high in Responsibility have advantages over others. Their deep sense of dedication and ownership means that they have a unique, psychological ownership of their work. They are people who keep their word. Others know that they can rely on them and trust them, because of this consistency in delivery. They are committed to stable values such as honesty and loyalty. I have found that because of these deep seated values, if they fail in any way at all, they hold themselves privately and personally to account, away from others and silently carry this with them until they have redressed things in their own eyes. I have worked with someone who was very high in Responsibility who would go home at night and if they didn’t believe that they have given 100% for every minute of the day, they would take work home with them and do it until they believe they have done the right amount, often working late into the darkness of the night. “I felt intense guilt if I don’t think that I done enough in the day”, they would say.

The Data 

One benefit of being a Gallup Certified Coach is that we have access to some very helpful data, which can provide deeper insights to top strengths. For example, based on a sample of over 250,000 people who have taken StrengthsFinder and have Responsibility in their top 5, it has been found the most likely Strength to be paired to Responsibility is Achiever. This study shows that the most unlikely pairing is Command. In terms of leadership potential, those with Responsibility will therefore most likely lead through having a reputation for Executing Projects rather than being Commander like.

So what are there any potential pitfalls with having a top strength like Responsibility and what can be done about them ?

There are three main areas that those with Responsibility may at some time struggle with.

Problem #1. The ability to say No to people. Hence they sometimes take too much on.

Problem #2. Inability to let go of things to others and trust them to deliver to your high standards.

Problem #3. The tendency to micromanage things.

When combined what does this mean. Taking on too much, doing too much and spending too much time on the details. When taken to an extreme and when in their least mature form, those around them may see the person taking too many things on, too much time being taken and too much detail being gone into. Pretty frustrating to be around too.

So there are some opportunities for people who have Responsibility but who haven’t yet managed to control this strength and take it to a level of maturity. Control the amount things being taken on – by starting to be more selective and by starting to say No. Develop Strategies to taking on the Right Type of Work. Decide what the right type of work is. Develop ways to safely pass work on to others and check in occasionally and at the right time. Do this by developing systems to stagegate projects and make checklists. Think about how much detail is needed before starting the work. Write this down. Agree it with the client and any direct reports.

By taking these steps you will have ;

The Right Amount and Type of Work

Delivered to the right quality and level of detail. Imagine that !

In summary

My strengths teacher, the late Curt Liesveld, explained to me that having Responsibility in a Top Five was a great strength to have, but he also explained that people with Responsibility are driven because of their sense of duty to OTHERS, whereas someone with Achiever will achieve things for themselves.

By taking some simple steps to turn a raw strength into a mature strength we can have the chance to help others more and ourselves a great deal too.

I hope this article is helpful to any one interested in playing to their strengths and those with Responsibility in particular.