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When your greatest strength becomes your biggest challenge

When people hear that Strengthscope is a strengths-based tool, they assume it's going to be affirming. And it is - up to a point. There's genuine pleasure in seeing your Significant Seven laid out clearly, in recognising yourself in the descriptions, in feeling seen rather than assessed.But there's another layer to Strengthscope that I think is actually more useful. And it's the part that tends to make people go very quiet in a session.Every strength has a risk factor. A way it can tip - not int...

What ten years of Strengthscope has taught me about myself

When someone gets their Strengthscope results for the first time, there's a pattern I've watched play out more times than I can count. They glance at their Significant Seven - the strengths that are most energetically theirs - and then their eyes drift.  To the short bars; the non-strengths.And then comes the look. A slight frown, a little anxiety, occasionally a defensive laugh. "What does it mean that I scored low there?"I understand the pull. We've been trained to find the gap and worry ...

Why strengths? The case for starting with what's already working

It's not a rhetorical question. Most of us have spent years - sometimes decades - looking sideways at other people and quietly accumulating a list of qualities we wished we had. More decisive. More strategic. More analytical. More whatever seems to be lighting up the room that we don't quite feel we bring.And in the meantime, the things that come most naturally to us - the qualities that are genuinely, distinctively ours - get quietly dismissed. Written off as ordinary. As just the way we happen...

What is Strengthscope - and what makes it different?

If you've ever done a strengths assessment - CliftonStrengths, perhaps, or something similar at a team away-day - you already have a rough sense of the territory. You answer a series of questions, you get a report, and somewhere in it you find a description of yourself that's a little uncomfortably accurate.Strengthscope works in similar territory. But it asks a slightly different question - and that difference matters more than it might first appear....

The Curse of Knowledge (and why I'm writing this series)

Have you ever tried to explain something you know really well - and found that the words just wouldn't come? Not because you didn't know enough, but because you knew too much.That's where I've been with Strengthscope.I've used this strengths-based psychometric tool with leaders, teams, and organisations for over a decade - and on myself several times. I've watched it shift things for people: the quiet "oh" when someone sees their Significant Seven strengths for the first time, the relief when a ...

What Coaching With Me Can Look Like – A Real Client Journey

For those who are wondering what it might actually feel like to work with me – especially if you’ve never experienced coaching before – it can be helpful to see a real example. What follows is one client’s journey. The identifying details have been changed, but the substance and shape of the work are true to life....

Why Don’t They Get It? The Leadership Blind Spot We Don’t Talk About

There’s a moment many leaders recognise, although we don’t often talk about it out loud. You’ve spent years becoming good at what you do. You’ve built judgement through experience, learned what to pay attention to and what to ignore, developed an instinct for what will work and what won’t. Then your role shifts. You’re no longer just delivering the work – you’re responsible for helping others deliver it too.And that’s when the frustration can creep in.You explain something that...

Why Leadership Still Fascinates Me

Leadership has been part of my working life for long enough now that I’m no longer drawn to neat models or confident answers delivered too quickly. What keeps my attention is something quieter and less tidy than that.I’m drawn to the in-between moments – the space where someone is trying to do the right thing but isn’t entirely sure how. Where they care deeply about their work, their reputation and the people around them, and still find themselves slightly wrong-footed. That feeling of w...