Career Branding When Restorative Is Your Strength
I get gobs of questions about how to align your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Restorative with your career.
So in this series, I break down one strength per post so that you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make a better match between your job and your strengths.
\u2013 If you\u2019re exploring as a manager, use this series for career development ideas and even new clues about responsibilities you could give a person with this talent theme so that they can show up at their best.
\u2013 If you\u2019re exploring for yourself, use this as a chance to build a reputation for your strengths so that you\u2019re more likely to be given assignments that live in your strengths zone.
Today, the talent theme of the post is Restorative.
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You\u2019ll get three layers to chew on:
- Career Branding
- Red Flag Situations At Work
- Fresh Application Ideas
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Career Branding For RestorativeYou probably already have a reputation for what you know. If you imagine your resume or your LinkedIn profile, I bet it\u2019s full of \u201cthe what,\u201d which are things like job titles, skills, knowledge, expertise, or the degree you earned. Now, what\u2019s missing in most of them is \u201cthe how,\u201d and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live. This is an overlooked use for LinkedIn, which is not just for job seekers.
I bet you are just like my StrengthsFinder training clients, where you don\u2019t see your teammates and customers every day. That\u2019s why LinkedIn has become so important for career branding. It\u2019s how your teammates, customers, and vendors go look you up before a meeting \u2013 to see who they\u2019re about to talk to. And rather than only telling them\xa0what\xa0you know, you should also give them a peek at\xa0howit is to work with you.
With that in mind, here are a bunch of adjectives you can consider using in your career branding and your LinkedIn profile. People who lead through Restorative are often:
- Problem-Invaders
- Issue CPR-Givers
- Unintimidated by Big Problems
- Root Cause Finders
- Diagnosers
- Fixers (or Fixer-Upper)
- Investigators
- Accountable
- Rehabilitators
- Realistic
- Troubleshooters
These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Restorative. They might even make you want to quit the team. So I\u2019ll give you a couple of these to be on watch for \u2014 because if they fester, you might get the urge to quit the job or become detached and disengaged at work.
Here are two Red flags for Restorative:
- False Harmony.\xa0If you lead through Restorative and you have a team culture where people are outwardly harmonious (when they don\u2019t actually agree) \u2014 where they fake their agreement and go through great lengths to be conflict avoidant, you will probably feel super drained by that.
- Sweeping Issues Under the Rug.\xa0If you keep getting responses to your problem-solving ideas that sound like, \u201cWell that\u2019s not really something we own\u201d or \u201cThat will never work here\u201d or \u201cNo one else seems\xa0worried about it, so let\u2019s not make mountains out of molehills\u201d \u2014 you will be soul-sucked because you\u2019re around people who are ignoring problems that you\u2019d be happy to solve.
These are ways to apply the talent theme of Restorative at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you\u2019re listening as a team manager, be sure to have a conversation around these ideas. You\u2019ll both be able to come up with places to apply them.
For someone who leads through Restorative, put this talent to good use with one of these options:
- Give them your big, hairy problems.\xa0Many managers feel bad delegating problems. Yet problems are a treat for people who lead through Restorative. Tell them why you assigned them, and that you know they\u2019ll be able to diagnose and propose at a level that few people can do.
- Get them assigned to solving problems for your best or biggest customers.\xa0This person will enjoy the challenge of discovering and removing the obstacles. You can rest assured that they\u2019ll go about it in a businesslike, focused way (rather than the emotional panic that many would get into).
- When you\u2019re stuck.\xa0When you catch anyone on the team saying, \u201cI\u2019m stumped\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m baffled\u201d or \u201cI don\u2019t know what to do\u201d \u2014 consider partnering them with your team member with Restorative. This person has fun finding the root causes and helping people decide how to move forward.
So there you have it. It\u2019s a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Restorative. So, here\u2019s your homework:
- Go take action on your LinkedIn profile with the career branding section. Challenge yourself to write one sentence in the Summary section of LinkedIn that captures how you collaborate as a teammate at work.
- Then think over the red flags to see if there\u2019s anything you need to get in front of before it brings you down.
- And finally, volunteer your talents through the application ideas. And if you\u2019re a manager, have a conversation with your team members about which of these things sound like something they\u2019d love to have more of.
If you\u2019re thinking about doing a virtual or in-person event to kick off your strengths-based culture, head on over to\xa0our training page\xa0to see if our current offerings are a good fit for you. Until next time, thank you for being part of this powerful strengths movement that helps people unleash the awesomeness already inside them.
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