People Boost: How to Encourage Others’ Personal Strengths

Patricia Morgan Positive Psychology boost others, leaders, Martin Seligman, strengths, workplace 0

group of people depicting the importance of encourage strengths — Alberta speaker, Patricia Morgan, helps people build resilience.

It is a delight to see a leader, a manager, a co-worker, a parent or simply a friend, acknowledge another’s strengths. Whether you are in one of these roles or simply want to help others, I trust you will find this blog helpful. Here we will explore the importance of encouraging others’ personal strengths and then offer you ways to act as a People Booster.

Dr. Martin Seligman, Marcus Buckingham and other researchers have endorsed the idea that building on personal strengths has many benefits. They range from better connections with others to improved productivity.

5 Benefits to Encouraging Others’ Personal Strengths

Enhanced Relationships: Acknowledging and encouraging others’ personal strengths fosters stronger connections. When we feel recognized and valued for our strengths, we tend to feel more positive about themselves and our relationships. This can lead to deeper trust, respect, and mutual support.
Boosted Confidence: Recognizing and affirming our strengths can boost our self-confidence. It validates our abilities and talents, empowering us to take on challenges with a positive mindset. This increased confidence can lead to higher levels of performance and productivity at work, home, and community.
Improved Collaboration: Acknowledging each other’s strengths in a team or group can lead to improved collaboration and even fellowship. Teams can then work more effectively toward common goals. When team members feel appreciated for their contributions, they are more likely to actively participate and cooperate, leading to greater success for all.
Positive Work Environment: Encouraging a culture of recognizing and celebrating personal strengths creates a positive work environment. Employees feel valued and motivated to excel, leading to higher job satisfaction and lower turnover rates. A workplace that emphasizes strengths also tends to be more innovative, as individuals are encouraged to leverage their unique abilities to solve problems and generate creative solutions.
Personal Growth and Development: Acknowledging and encouraging personal strengths can inspire us to further develop and hone our talents and skills. When we receive positive feedback about our strengths, we are more likely to invest time and effort into developing those skills. This continuous growth not only benefits the us but also contributes to the overall success of the organization or community.

Now, let’s put this valuable act of boosting people by acknowledging and encouraging their personal strengths.

9 Ways to Encourage Others’ Personal Strengths

First help your staff, volunteers, co-workers and others identify their strengths. effectively complete certain activities. Below are some ways to identify strengths:

Use the information from the article/blog Discover Your Strengths: Use Your Best Three.
Pay attention to others’ interests and speed of learning in activities that indicate strengths. When do they perform well? What activities do they love to do? From what activities do they get the most satisfaction and reward? What are their biggest accomplishments for which they feel proud?
Ask questions such as, What do you love to do? When does time fly for you? What do you do with ease and it energizes you? Do you prefer to create or to organize? Do you prefer to get a task done or listen to someone’s problems?
Refer them to Martin Seligman’s FREE inventory. Over 3 million people have taken it.
Notice what they consider a weakness. It may provide the seed of discovering a strength. A weakness may be a strength merely used at the wrong time, in the wrong situation, too often or too little with the wrong people. Of course we all have genuine weaknesses—activities that drain us and take extra focus for us to reach a goal.

Match responsibilities, activities and tasks to their strengths. Assign those with effective people skills such as listening and empathy to work in people service roles. Assign those with organizational and data focused strengths to more administrative roles.
Include at least three strength words in job descriptions.
Help them find new uses for their strengths. Ask them what they would like to do or accomplish using their strengths. Example: “You demonstrate incredible organizational skills. What do you see in our office or practices that could be better organized? Will you help us with that?”
Acknowledge the use of strengths. Comment on how their strengths make a difference to your organization. “Thank you, for demonstrating decisiveness. It helped us move forward in the project.”
Help them notice and appreciate the diversity and strengths in your organization. Help them see how other people’s strengths help to compensate their own weaknesses. It is helpful to borrow strengths from others; meaning ask others with a needed strength to help you when needed.
Help them find people that complement them. and their strengths and weaknesses.
Help develop their strengths by giving them higher level responsibilities and additional challenges.
Remember to discover your own strengths, use them and celebrate them. That will inspire those around you!

Whether you are a teacher, mentor, manager, leader or parent, helping others know and use their personal strengths is a gift to the world!