I was challenged several months ago to describe to my team my gifts and strengths. The intent behind this exercise was to clearly state how they can best support me as we work together towards achieving our organizational goals. I found this very difficult to do and especially awkward to talk about myself. Something felt very strange about stating what I feel are my greatest strengths, because I did not want it to come across arrogantly. After a series of months thinking through it and several drafts, I finally got something down that was worthy to share. The final product contained a bullet list of how I define my role, a chart of what I like to see presented visually and what I want to have presented as a conversation, a top 3 list of what I value and a short list of techniques I am using to communicate my vision. Once I presented it, the team said “yeah, we pretty much knew that.” However, there were a few things that individuals found enlightening from the perspective of why I do certain things and how the interconnect.

The details of what I shared were:

Role:
Serve as Standard Bearer to the External World
Craft Vision and Strategy, including its evolution
Define Preferred Culture, especially in regards to work-life balance, decision making authority, overall organizational expectations
People Development, both building an outstanding team top to bottom through recruiting and developing individuals already on the team

Audio Presentations:
Ideas & Concepts
Items Needing Immediate Feedback
Building Connections Between Principles

Visual Presentations:
Numbers & Empirical Results
Items Needing Review and Feedback Later
Excitement & Serious Striving
Timelines

Values:
Progress, especially noticeable differences
Doing Something Great
Doing Something Great, not for me selfishly, but to make the world around me better through whatever the present scenario presented to me

Vision Communication Techniques:
One on One Meetings, both project review and breakfast meetings
Blog Posts
Presentations during Team Meetings