People are wired to be great. Natural strengths and talents, when focused properly, will help you be successful. Yes, YOU are already wired to be your best, most amazing self. And teacher, when you focus on what makes you GREAT, you will have all the tools you need to beat the burnout!
In this episode, Josh Wenning, Executive Director of Region 8 Education Service Center and Certified Strengths Coach, helps me to navigate through my strengths and helps all of us understand how our strengths help us understand ourselves and others better, therefore creating stronger relationships, classrooms, and work culture.
Josh is a former classroom teacher and principal that is now the Executive Director at the Region 8 Education Service Center in Indiana. He is also a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach.
In this episode Josh will:
Explain what the Strengths Finder Assessment is and how to access it. (11:35)
Share how our strengths are not meant to label people into categories and how a person's “superpowers” could be twisted to seem like something negative. (17:50)
Tell us how knowing each other’s strengths creates a common vocabulary and it helps us understand one another and the way we behave and/or process and impact how you interact. (23:30)
Explain how we typically put labels on our students that have a negative connotation when, in fact, their raw strengths are starting to shine through in ways that could be labeled as disruptive or disrespectful. (28:25)
Tell us how we can use your leadership qualities for good. Some of the things that make students leaders are squelched. Maybe you have leadership qualities that haven’t been tapped into yet. (34:00)
Explain when people are disengaged at work, it’s because they’re lacking purpose and their strengths are not being utilized and are leading to the feeling of burnout. (43:10)
Share how knowing strengths is not just a way to understand ourselves better, but to understand our colleagues and students better. Celebrating differences is essential. (47:10)
CALL TO ACTION: THINGS YOU CAN DO TOMORROW
- Get to know yourself better by taking a personality assessment. And once you take the assessments, read through them carefully to really digest the information.
- Ask your students or colleagues to take a personality assessment as well. Then, reflect and talk as a group about your findings. Brainstorm ways how this could help you all communicate/work together better.
- Reflect on how you might have been misinterpreting students' strengths as weaknesses. Then brainstorm ways you can have students use these strengths for good.
FIND OUR GUEST
Region 8 Service Center of Indiana
Email: [email protected]
Social Media: @joshwenning
OUR GUEST’S RESOURCES
Gallup Strengths Finder Assessment
OTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Ten Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
BIT PODCAST FREEBIE
Burned in teacher training e-book: Chapter 4 Nurture Your Strengths
