Unlocking Your Potential: When Talents Become Strengths or Fall Short

Doing strengths takes intentional effort. To help in your strengths journey, we've created a list of strengths and shortfalls for the 34 talent themes.

A goal of the strengths journey is to turn your talents into strengths. While strengths hold great power, underdeveloped or overused talents may become limitations. And so a strength ends up becoming a shortfall. Here’s what I mean.

One of the CliftonStrengths talent themes is communication®. People who are good at communication can put thoughts into words, help ideas be understood, and consider what will be valuable to the audience. When their communication theme works this way, it’s very helpful.

However, when the same theme is underdeveloped or overused, it can fall short—become a shortfall. They may be too open or disclose the information they share, use insider jargon that isn’t helpful to the receiver, and communicate before the appropriate time.

When these happen, the communication theme feels more like a limitation than a strength. That’s why talent development is a major part of the strengths journey.

Unfortunately, many people take a strengths assessment more out of curiosity or obligation (if assigned) than a desire to grow. They complete the test, get the results, think, “Oh, that’s interesting,” and then file them away in the folder of lonely and neglected assessments, never to be heard from again.

When this happens, the person thinks, “Yeah, I’ve done strengths,” when they really haven’t. You don’t “do strengths” until you work on developing your talents into strengths and aim those strengths toward your work and life.

Not until you can explain to a four-year-old what your talent themes actually are and the good they do in the world can you say you’ve done strengths.

Not until you can describe how you’ve turned your talents into strengths and how you once used them this way but then learned to use them this way can you say you’ve done strengths.

Not until you can identify which strengths would be best suited for your particular work and then aim them toward that work can you say you’ve done strengths.

“Doing strengths” takes intentional effort. One practice I've adopted is having a concise view of my strengths and shortfalls.

For example, here are some examples of my top five talents:

Belief®

Strengths: Is energized by purposeful work; Operates with strong conviction; Acts in accordance with values

Shortfalls: Is stubborn in own beliefs; Avoids non-principled tasks; Expects others to share values

Maximizer®

Strengths: Is driven toward efficiency; Turns what’s good into best; Doesn’t accept average

Shortfalls: Is perpetually discontented; Aims too high when unnecessary; Turns people off by being critical

Responsibility®

Strengths: Is dependable and reliable; Completes what is started; Takes ownership of assignments

Shortfalls: Fails to delegate; Is anxious about responsibilities; Doesn’t say no

Empathy®

Strengths: Sees life from other’s view; Empathizes with feelings; Helps people feel loved

Shortfalls: Carries other people’s feelings; Confuses own feelings with others; Is led too much by feelings

Developer®

Strengths: Sees potential in people; Gives room to make mistakes; Inspires hope

Shortfalls: Fails to hold people accountable; Is too optimistic about potential; Forgets own boundaries

Exploring the strengths and shortfalls of your talent themes will help you to grow your talent. Want to see the whole list?

Each of the 34 CliftonStrengths theme names are trademarks of Gallup, Inc.