I recently took CliftonStrengths, an assessment which uses your responses to a series of statements to determine your strengths.
There are a total of 34 areas of strength in which the organization has identified in each person.
What the assessment does is determines what your top 5 strengths are and how you might see them in your day-to-day life and how you can hone them.
My top 5 themes according to the assessment are:
- Harmony
- Arranger
- Developer
- Responsibility
- Connectedness
As I read through the description of all the strengths, I found myself nodding my head in agreement because together, they definitely spoke to many of my core beliefs.
The theme which I was drawn to a lot was that of developer.
Most of my career, I’ve been a software developer – one who writes code to deliver value to customers and companies.
CliftonStrengths describes the developer strength as:
People who are especially talented in the Developer theme recognize and cultivate the potential in others. They spot the signs of each small improvement and derive satisfaction from these improvements.
More recently in my career path, I’ve been in positions of leadership as a people manager. As I read the description for developer, I thought it accurately described how I approach serving my teams and cultivating the talents of others.
I got into leadership because I enjoy empowering teammates and acknowledging their contributions. I enjoy mentoring and coaching teammates so that they can level up in their career.
The best part of my work as a leader are my 1-on-1s with my co-workers. I enjoy getting to know them, giving them the attention to help hone their skills and coaching them to achieve the goals that they have for themselves.
And when my co-workers make a breakthrough—whether big or small—I love celebrating the tiny win with them!
Reading the developer strength from the CliftonStrengths assessment then made me realize, I’d love to help those outside of my job as well advance in their career.
For this reason, I created a tech career mentorship opportunity for those who are early career software engineers, early career engineering managers or software engineers who want to make the transition into management.