A Strengths-Based Approach to
School Leadership: How a What’s
Right With Me Paradigm Engages
The School Community
Teri Marcos, Ed.D., Chair
Department of Educational Leadership
Azusa Pacific University
Strengths Philosophy
“Individuals gain more when they build on
their talents, than when they make
comparable efforts to improve their areas
of weakness.”
--Clifton & Harter, 2003, p. 112
Writing Challenge

Write your name 5 times…
What Was the Difference?
Could you write with your non-dominant
hand?
 With practice, could you get better at this?
 Could you write as WELL or as FAST or as
EASILY as with your dominant hand?

The Strengths Perspective
“You start seeing people in terms of who
they are … rather than in terms of who
they aren’t…”
--Chip Anderson, 2000
What Are Strengths?
Talent + Knowledge +
Skills = Strength
--Clifton & Harter, 2003
Ways of seeing the world and interacting
with it that enable excellence.
The Highest Achievers
 Spend
most of their time in their
areas of strength
 Use their strengths to overcome
obstacles
 Invent ways of capitalizing on their
strengths in new situations
The Focus Changes
FROM:
 Problems
 Attendance
 Preparation
 Putting into the
student
 Average
TO:
 Possibilities
 Engagement
 Motivation
 Drawing out from the
student
 Excellence
The Global Language of Data

Data cognitively drive the current global language
we speak in education.

Strengths-based training affectively rooted in the
field of social work, psychiatry, and business,
draw on the strengths of individuals as an
effective replacement of commonly accepted
deficit models which ask ‘what’s wrong with me’
to a ‘what’s right with me’ approach.
What’s Right With Me?
This question offers a powerful counter to
the largely data-driven landscape of public
education in America.
 “Becoming more aware of one’s strengths
can build excellence in future
achievements, relationships, and other life
experiences” (Clifton and Anderson,
2004).

What is a Strength?

In their book, StrengthsQuest, Clifton and
Anderson define a strength as “the ability to
provide consistent, near-perfect performance in
a given activity.”

The Gallup organization’s Clifton
StrengthsFinder Inventory was prescribed
within this research as a personal lens through
which school leaders viewed their strengths.
The Standardized Language of
American School Leadership Practice
Competent American school leaders are
required to provide consistent, nearperfect performance within the six
contructs of their duties, as defined by the
Interstate School Leadership Licensure
Consortium (ISLLC) National Standards for
Educational Leadership.
 These are:

ISLLC Standards
1.
2.
Facilitating the development,
articulation, implementation, and
stewardship of a vision of learning that is
shared and supported by the school
community. (Visionary Leadership).
Advocating, nurturing and sustaining a
school culture and instructional program
conducive to student learning and staff
professional growth. (Professional
Culture).
Cont…
3.
4.
Ensuring management of the
organization, operations, and resources
for a safe, efficient, and effective
learning environment (Efficient
Management of Operations).
Collaborating with families and
community members, responding to
diverse community interests and needs,
and mobilizing community resources
(Responsiveness to Community).
Cont…
5.
6.
Modeling a personal code of ethics and
developing professional leadership
capacity (Ethical Leadership).
Responding to, and influencing the larger
political, social economic, legal, and
cultural context (Politically and Culturally
Sensitive Understanding).
Know Thyself
Globally, we are experiencing exponential
growth in new knowledge, new fields of
scholarly practice, and new technologies
that facilitate our creation of, access to,
and distribution of information.
 School leaders must ‘know thyself’
(Glickman, 2004) in such a world to
effectively lead others.

The Language of Identity
Knowing thyself through identity is crucial
to learning and to leading.
 1,500 individuals were surveyed in 1988
(by Kouzes and Posner) to determine what
values (personal traits or characteristics)
they admire in their superiors.
 Findings – followers admired leaders who
were honest, competent, forward-looking
and inspiring.

The Language of Strengths
The findings of Kouzes and Posner showed
that followers hold dear the relationship of
the personal values of decision makers to
the values of their organization.
 Values are communicated in everything a
school leader does, writes, and speaks.
This second set of skills includes the
ability to be empathetic, to listen
attentively, to pay attention to another
and to value others.

Strengths

Strengths are naturally occurring patterns
of thought, feeling, or behavior which can
be productively applied.

“Strengths are among the most real and
most authentic aspects of a personhood”
(Clifton and Anderson, 2004).
34 SignatureThemes
Achiever
Deliberative
Learner *
Activator
Developer
Maximizer
Adaptability **
Discipline
Positivity
Analysis
Empathy
Relator **
Arranger
Focus
Responsibility
Belief
Futuristic
Restorative
Command
Harmonizer
Self-Assurance
Communicator
Ideation
Significance
Competitor
Includer
Strategic
Connectedness
Individualization
Winning Others Over
(WOO)
Consistency
Input *
**= Strongest Student
Themes
Context
Intellection *
•= Strongest Faculty Themes
Source: Dr. Laurie Schreiner, APU
Strengths and School Leadership

As school leaders identified their own top
five strengths, they began to recognize
the strengths of others.
Method
Objective:
This research examined the perceptions of K12 public and private school leaders on the effects their top
five identified strengths had on their leadership skills within
the American school setting.
Sample: 75 American school leaders were randomly
selected to respond to a questionnaire regarding their
perspectives on the effects of their top five identified
strengths on their leadership skills within the American
school learning environment.
Instrument:
Three sections: Demographics, Four
element Likert Scale, qualitative section to gather school
leaders’ perceptions of the effects of their strengths within
their leadership role at their school.
Procedure:
School leaders were sampled through public
mailings, and APU’s master’s degree program in educational
leadership.
Reliability
StrengthsFinder Inventory:
 Used with over 4 million people in 17
languages – over 100,000 college
students
 Previous Gallup studies: 17-month testretest reliability across all populations
ranges from .60 to .80
 College student validity study:

3-month test-retest reliability among college
students ranges from .70 to .76
Three Primary Findings
70% of all respondents identified Achiever and/or Learner as
their top or second strength.
Strengths:
1.
2.
3.
Total N
% of 75 Respondents
Achiever
//////////////////////////
26
35%
Learner
//////////////////////////
26
35%
Maximizer
////////////////////
20
27%
Responsibility
////////////////
16
21%
Harmony
////////////////
16
21%
Overall leadership capacity increased
Building Communities of Practice was enhanced
Increased understanding of group dynamics
Overall Leadership Capacity Increased
99% of respondents agreed or somewhat
agreed that an increase in their overall
leadership capacity was positively
attributed to knowing their strengths.
 80% agreed or somewhat agreed that
leading change, and decision making
capacity (90%) were each impacted
significantly through knowing their
strengths.

Building Communities of Practice
93% agreed or somewhat agreed that
building community was enhanced
through knowing their strengths in the
following areas:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Valuing others’ strengths (91%)
Team building (91%)
Valuing diversity (96%)
Parent contact (93%)
Increased adaptability (89%)
Group Dynamics
88% of respondents identified an increase in
the understanding of group dynamics.
Sub-categories within group dynamics
emerged as:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Improved professional relationships (91%)
Facilitation of meetings (83%)
Student discipline (93%)
Communication with students (96%)
Communication with staff (99%)
Conclusions
As knowledge increasingly relates to
feeling it continues to appreciably affect
behavior.
 In our data driven society, school leaders,
teachers, and designers of curriculum and
assessment need to recognize that
motivation and engagement are at the
heart of all learning.
 This can be accomplished well through a
strengths-based approach.

Recommendations
A renewed vision of the importance of
balance through each of the three learning
modalities of cognitive, affective, and
psychomotor must be raised.
 Educators need to well espouse each of
the three domains of learning and leading,
and do our very best to employ the use of
the affective domain in teaching students.
 It is recommended school leaders become
empowered by knowing their strengths to
pursue excellence for their organizations.

Summary
Affectively, strengths-based models fit well
into the area of knowledge for training
school leaders, teachers, and students.
 Participants in this study said: “I know
my unique strengths now”; “I use my
strengths everyday, and I observe others
and can identify their strengths”; “I now
understand why and how I can be
successful.”
