Podcast by Elise Stevens:

How to spot character strengths in your project team members (a talk with Ruth Pearce)

How long of a read?	29 minutes
What level of expertise?	All levels
What is the article about?	Do you know your character strengths? Can you spot them in your project team members? How do you cultivate strengths you have in others.

This podcast interviews Ruth Pearce an author and Project Manager speaker.  She takes us on a journey of social intelligence during this nearly 30 min interview.  Ruth wants project managers to be aware of their team’s strengths through knowing who they are in the world.  

Project Managers have some of the most common six strengths. Her reaction is that PMs are like everyone else. Not so true, as a group there are some strengths that are higher and lower collectively as a group that stands out over the individuals.  

Lowest are self regulation, zest, prudence and perseverance, forgiveness and teamwork  (planning strength, is much higher in the PM’s vs the general population). Need to be aware so you do not overuse your strengths. Use your judgement and cancel a project if it is needed.  Don’t get stuck in the planning mode. Social intelligence is ranked in 17 or 20 out of 24 for PM’s. Many expect that a PM would be able to view the large picture, but often is not a PM strength.  

Take the character strength list into a meeting and try to assist the team in the meeting room. 

Take your own survey to see what your personal strengths are, and look over your ranking. The first five are your signature strengths. Look at how you use your top strengths. Think about how to use these strengths to change your environment. It will cause a ripple effect of how you are changing. Ruth offers a plan in her book, to help you see this change.  

The book is titled Be a Project Motivator, Strengths Based Management 

Social Intelligence Test: https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/surveys/finished/10548489

I took this test and got the following results. Keeping in mind that the order doesn’t necessarily dictate your most used or most needed area.  

Love, Gratitude, Love of learning, Kindness, Spirituality, Curiosity, Hope Leadership, Honesty, Creativity, Judgement, Fairness, Social intelligence, Forgiveness, self=regulation, Appreciation of beauty & Excellence, Prudence, perspective, perseverance, Humility, Bravery, Teamwork, Zest, Humor

LEADERS THOUGHTS SECTION

• Joy – Working with different team members will help you not only to  figure out what your own character strengths are, but also to push yourself to build on your weaker character strengths by observing and working with others who have stronger strengths from yourself.  Seize every project as a chance to learn. Use every opportunity to observe and research what works for your team and your particular environment in order to better yourself and others in future projects!
• Glenn – A lesson I learned early in my working life was that success was based on building and maintaining relationships. Understanding yourself is a good start, working to understand others is essential, and then together as a team working to build on strengths and stretching in areas of weakness is a continual journey.
• Lauren – When you work with in a group environment it is always helpful to understand others learning and teaching styles.  The more you can approach each experience as a learning experience it will help you work better in the future and avoid hurdles over and over.  Take every chance to learn and grow, with resources such as the one Ruth put before us in this podcast can help broaden your horizons and learn how to work with others in changing work situations.