The thing most people do first
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 about it. But after ten years of using Strengthscope - on clients, on teams, and repeatedly on myself - I've come to see those short bars very differently.
My own wheel is attached to this post. Have a look before you read on - because everything I'm about to say makes more sense when you can see it.
What my wheel actually shows
My Relational cluster dominates at 42%. That means nearly half of what energises me sits in the territory of establishing and maintaining connections with others - and when I look at the specific bars within it, that feels completely true. Relationship Building, Empathy, Developing Others, and Leading are all long, strong bars. These are the things that light me up. The conversations, the connections, the moments when something shifts for someone and I get to be part of that.
My Significant Seven - Relationship Building, Empathy, Developing Others, Leading, Emotional Control, Enthusiasm, and Collaboration - tell a story about someone who is energised by people, by growth, by the quality of connection in a room.
And then there's the other end of the picture.
My Execution cluster sits at 15%. Results Focus and Decisiveness - the drive to push toward outcomes with clarity and confidence - are my shortest bars. Always have been. And here's the thing that surprises people when I tell them: over ten years of using this tool on myself, those bars have got shorter, not longer.
Why lower bars aren't what you think
I've watched people look at that and feel a flicker of alarm on my behalf. Surely, as a business owner, you need to be decisive? Surely you need to be results-focused, able to drive projects to completion?
Here's what I've come to understand. The fact that those bars have got shorter isn't a sign that I'm getting worse at those things. It's a sign that I'm getting clearer. Clearer about what genuinely energises me - and equally clear about what doesn't.
Strengthscope measures energy, not competence. I can make decisions. I do make them, every day. But sitting down to make a rapid, confident call on something costs me something. And the more honest I've become with myself about that over the years, the more accurately my wheel reflects it.
That clarity is useful. It tells me where I need to be intentional - where I need to build in support, create the right conditions, or draw on other strengths to help me do what the role requires.
How strengths carry you through the gaps
Take Decisiveness. When I need to make a decision I'm finding difficult, I don't push through on willpower alone. I draw on Empathy and Relationship Building to talk it through with someone whose thinking I trust. I draw on Emotional Control to stay steady when the decision feels uncomfortable. I draw on Leading to remind myself that clarity, even when imperfect, serves the people around me.
And Results Focus - the drive to push tasks and projects across the line? I lean into Enthusiasm to find the energy when I need it. I lean into Developing Others to make the process feel purposeful rather than mechanical. The outcome still gets reached. Just not in the way it might for someone whose bars look very different from mine.
This is one of the things I find most fascinating about Strengthscope used over time. It doesn't just show you who you are - it shows you who you're becoming. The story of how your profile shifts is often more interesting than the profile itself.
What it means to know yourself this well
I don't share my own results because I think they're impressive. I share them because transparency matters when you're asking other people to be vulnerable in the same way. And because my wheel - with its dominant Relational cluster, its long purple bars, and its quietly short Execution scores - is a genuinely honest picture of how I work.
But here's what I want you to sit with for a moment.
Right now, you have strengths you've probably never named. Qualities you've been taking for granted because they come so easily - assuming everyone must be the same. Ways of thinking, connecting, or working that feel so natural to you that you've never thought to question whether they're actually rare.
They might be. And if they are, that changes things.
Not just how you see yourself - but how you lead, how you communicate, how you make sense of the moments when things feel hard. When you know what genuinely energises you, and what it looks like when that tips into overdrive, you stop working against yourself. You start working with yourself instead.
That's what your wheel could show you and I'd love to be the one to walk through it with you.
If you're curious about what your profile might look like (or what it might make possible) feel free to get in touch. A first conversation costs nothing, and it might just change how you see yourself.
