Running head: CHRISTINA MAGNIFICO STRENGTHS 1

Christina Magnifico Managerial Strengths Profile

Christina Magnifico

Emporia State University

CHRISTINA MAGNIFICO STRENGTHS 2

Introduction

To be an effective manager, you have to know what your strengths are and how to utilize them. The

StrengthsFinder 2.0 book and online assessment provides readers with an in-depth understanding of their

top five natural talents. After taking the online assessment, you are presented with a detailed analysis of

your strengths which can be paired with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book. Utilizing both resources, you can

pin-point unique talents and focus on developing your managerial skillset.

My top five strengths were Strategic, Ideation, Achiever, Significance, and Futuristic. Even

before reading through the Strengths Insight and Action-Planning Guide, simply knowing that my

strengths do not lie in building relationships is extraordinarily useful as I begin to focus on building my

own managerial style.

This paper will provide a general overview of my strengths and discuss how I plan to implement

the knowledge I have gained through this assessment.

Unique Talents

Each strength is an important building block that can be used to construct a solid managerial

foundation, and shows you where your focus should be when deciding how you can add value to your

team. Certain strengths will help you analyze information, while others will allow you to function more

cohesively as a whole. Gaining in-sight into my own leadership strengths has shown me that while I may

not be the glue holding my team together, I can keep my team focused an on-task. My individual

strengths will be what I base my managerial style on, and will bring unique value to any

managerial role I fill in the future.

Strategic. My first strength—and the one I scored the highest—is Strategic. This strength allows

me to easily identify problems and quickly develop useful alternatives. This strength builds on my

innovative and imaginative nature, which allows me to create bridges between multiple facts. Though

strategy is not always tactical, this strength paired with my other would give me valuable problem-solving

skills.

Ideation. My second strength again focuses on ideas. Ideation is another bridge-building

strength, and plays on my love of language. My ideas are clear, concise and those around me do not have

to wonder what my intentions may be. Being able to clearly communicate with my team would help me

generate trust and maintain organization as a team.

Achiever. Achieving whatever I sent my sights on has always been something I have taken a

great deal of pride in. The Achiever strength is what drives to me complete all my projects and gives me

the stamina to do so. In my opinion, this particular strength would be one of the most important strengths

in my managerial skillset.

Significance. The Significance strength—as I see it—pulls from the previous strengths.

Brimming with ideas, I want everyone in a room to see me as a valuable member of the team. This

strength definitely shows that I would rather be loved than feared, which is an important part of

understanding my managerial role within a team.

Futuristic. This last strength is yet another ideas-based strength. Having Futuristic as a strength

means that I find inspiration in the future and enjoy thinking about innovations and pioneering ideas. It

also means that I could fear being behind the times, and push my team to succeed at great cost to team

cohesion.

Adding Value

Reading through my Strengths Insight and Action-Planning Guide, I was able to see a clear picture of

how I would add value at an organizational level and at a team level. Many of my strengths draw on my

ability to generate ideas, problem-solve, and push a team to achieve. As a manager, these strengths would

bring immense value to my role as a leader.

Strategic thinking does not always come naturally to those in managerial roles. The book

specifically states that strategic thinking is an unteachable skill. This strength can be utilized as a valuable

resource to my team, especially when they are dealing with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

Keeping my team focused, on task, and showing them how to achieve the professional goals they have set

for themselves will help maintain staff/team cohesion. As a manager, I can add value to my team by

helping them accomplish achievements through motivation and recognition. Knowing that I enjoy being

recognized for my accomplishments, I would be sure to recognize my team when goals were met.

Teamwork

Throughout this semester the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment will be at the forefront of my mind when

working with my teams. The knowledge that I gained through this assessment has shown me that I will

need to keep my team focused on the assignments, but that I will also need to make my own decisions

when it comes to what aspects of the assignment I choose to do. I will need to remember that my Strategic

strength may be seen as condescending and that I will need to be very tactical in how I present my ideas.

In terms of generating ideas with my team, I will have to remember not to overwhelm my team with the

amount of ideas I may want to contribute to the assignment.

For our Strategic Plan Project (Assignment 2), I feel that my strengths will definitely be essential

to the success of our team as a whole. In order to create a well-organized and meaningful strategic plan,

the team will need to be able to do some “big picture” thinking, something that comes naturally to me.

During the process, the connections I will be able to draw between the ideas generated at possible

repercussions.

Conclusion

The StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment showed me that my strengths lie in my ability to think big, think

often, and think ahead. After reading through my Insight Guide and the coinciding chapters in the

StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, I can see that my strengths work well together. Each strength plays off another

and this gives me the potential to really customize my managerial style in the future. I look forward to all

the ways I am able to utilize my strengths and plan to implement the knowledge I gained from this

assessment in not only this class, but future courses and projects.