Understanding your personal strengths and weaknesses can lead to you unlocking a world of possibilities. It can help you find the job that best suits your needs and goals, allows you to build new bonds with others, increases your self-awareness, and offers far, far more opportunities to allow for personal growth and development.
It can truly make the difference between you having a successful and happy career, or having one in which your passion is limited.
Understanding how to highlight your strengths is often necessary to succeed. In this article, we will highlight the importance of knowing key strengths and weaknesses as well as strategies to use for communicating these skills.
Comprehensive List of 100 Personal Strengths and Weaknesses to Use During Your Job Interviews
It can be extremely beneficial to pursue jobs that are closely related to your strengths. This can allow you to maximize your odds of success, help you feel more confident, and boost your feelings of happiness as well as achievement.
Before starting a strength-based approach to work, you must get a solid understanding of what your current strengths are. Everyone has a unique list of strengths and abilities. But, if you need some inspiration, here is a list of 100 examples of strengths as well as a list of weaknesses:
50 Examples of Personal Strengths
- Perseverance
- Strategic thinking
- Understanding
- Eagerness
- Adaptability
- Active listening
- Emotional intelligence
- Benevolence
- Goal-oriented
- Appreciation
- Honesty
- Humility
- Communication skills
- Initiative
- Innovation
- Honesty
- Leadership
- Listening skills
- Loyalty
- Motivation
- Negotiation skills
- Open-mindedness
- Organization
- Patience
- Perseverance
- Positive attitude
- Problem-solving skills
- Professionalism
- Timeliness
- Being a quick learner
- Resilience
- Responsibility
- Self-discipline
- Self-motivation
- Self-awareness
- Self-confidence
- Emotional stability
- Planning
- Diligence
- Team player
- Efficiency
- Acceptance
- Trustworthiness
- Versatility
- Foresight
- Willingness to learn
- Assertive communication
- Genuineness
- Calm under pressure
- Mental strength
50 Examples of Personal Weaknesses
- Impatience
- Procrastination
- Lack of confidence
- Difficulty with public speaking
- Perfectionism
- Poor time management
- Overly critical of oneself
- Difficulty saying no
- Tendency to overthink
- Being too self-critical
- Inflexibility
- Being too sensitive to criticism
- Difficulty delegating tasks
- Lack of assertiveness
- Trouble with prioritizing tasks
- Disorganized
- Impulsiveness
- Resistance to change
- Difficulty handling conflict
- Being overly detail-oriented
- Lack of technical skills in a specific area
- Overly cautious
- Difficulty in decision-making
- Being too self-reliant
- Lack of creativity
- Being too talkative
- Difficulty in giving feedback
- Tendency to take on too much responsibility
- Overly dependent on others’ opinions
- Difficulty in adapting to new technologies
- Being easily distracted
- Trouble with multitasking
- Overly focused on minor details
- Lack of assertiveness in expressing ideas
- Difficulty in working in a team
- Impulsive decision-making
- Being too focused on the big picture
- Lack of resilience in the face of failure
- Tendency to avoid conflict at all coats
- Difficulty in managing stress
- Overly self-critical of one’s work
- Being too competitive
- Lack of experience in a specific area
- Difficulty in setting boundaries
- Being too rigid in following rules
- Overly cautious in taking risks
- Tendency to get overwhelmed easily
- Lack of attention to detail
- Difficulty in managing workload
- Struggling with understanding other perspectives
What Are Personal Strengths? Definition
Strengths are the areas in which you excel within your professional realm. They are positive attributes that showcase your exceptional abilities and qualities.
Each individual possesses a unique set of signature strengths, shaped by their distinct experiences and personal development. The cultivation of these strengths stems predominantly from prior encounters, allowing you to harness and refine them over time.
Strengths can also relate to your personal life. They encompass the qualities that allow you to build strong bonds with your partner, speak more clearly as well as directly, and have more positive impacts on your life. In general, they are the qualities that can further your relationship.
What Are Personal Weaknesses? Definition
Unlike your strengths, weaknesses detract from your personal life. They can make having meaningful relationships with others more difficult, hurt your career, demotivate you, decrease your passion, and have numerous other negative consequences. In general, they are the antithesis of strengths.
Having weaknesses is a natural part of being human. However, this does not mean you are destined to forever have certain weaknesses simply because you were born with them. With hard work, and by using a strength-based approach to growth, you can overcome your weaknesses.
Why Our Personal Strengths and Weaknesses Matter: The Research
The hypothetical benefits of strengths are all great to read about. But, many people will wonder: what does the research and data say about the importance of strengths?
The field of psychology has long been fascinated with strengths. And, luckily, there has been an immense amount of data surrounding the matters of strengths and weaknesses.
This research dates back all the way to the late 1900s, and to the early 200s through the works of Dr. Donald O. Clifton, Dr. Martin Seligman, and many other world-famous psychologists.
For example, Values in Action is an assessment that was recently evaluated for its efficacy. Research performed by Dr. Wagner and her team found that taking the VIA assessment and pursuing strength-enhancing activities helped individuals flourish at work and build stronger relationships (1).
In addition, other reports have found a vast amount of different positive effects from learning about both your strengths and weaknesses.
For instance, it can increase an individual’s well-being, creating social connections with numerous individuals, fostering closer family bonds, and far more. This data has been validated by numerous researchers from all across the globe (2).
The Fortitude of Character
The fortitude of character means something different to many different individuals. But, in general, fortitude of character can play a huge role in assisting individuals in their careers and in your personal lives too.
Before you can understand how fortitude character applies to your life and what your uniqueness is, you must understand what fortitude of character is.
The fortitude of character encompasses qualities such as courage, resilience, determination, and mental toughness. It involves facing difficulties head-on, overcoming bad habits, maintaining a positive attitude, and not being easily discouraged or swayed by external factors.
Individuals with fortitude of character demonstrate a strong commitment to their principles, exhibiting moral commitment to their values and integrity even when confronted with difficult choices or ethical dilemmas.
The fortitude of character can help individuals help them overcome their hardships, grow as a person, and achieve amazing things. It is not a specific personality type but can help highlight your positive values.
5 Benefits of Listing Your Personal Strengths and Weaknesses
Listing your personal strengths and weaknesses on your application to jobs can be extremely helpful. It highlights your top qualities and gives compelling reasons for an employer to hire you and invest in you as a person. While there are a plethora of these benefits, here are just a few to keep in mind:
Facilitates Self-Discovery and Self-Awareness
It is crucially important to understand who you are on a personal level. This can help clarify your values, and allows you to better communicate who you are to others such as colleagues, employers, interviewers, and your spouse.
Promotes Self-Growth and Personal Development
Personal development and self-growth should be a major part of anyone’s career and personal journey. People will try many different strategies to boost this growth process, but one of the greatest techniques you could utilize is self-reflection and listing out your strengths. It fosters positivity and a growth mindset over time.
Fosters a Positive Internal Dialogue
Listing out your strengths is a great tool for self-reflection. It allows you to clearly see what you are currently excelling in, and what aspects of your personality you might heed to work more on. It allows for self-reflection and internal dialogue in a way that is not toxic and focused on growth.
Enhances Understanding and Acceptance of Individual Differences
When working as a team, you will have to understand and accept a wide array of individuals. They may be very different from you. However, after finding your unique strengths, and finding out what makes you unique, individuals are more likely to sympathize with others.
They are more likely to see the good in others once they recognize their own goodness and uniqueness.
Cultivates Self-Value and Self-Worth
Having the courage to be vulnerable and open enough to share your strengths and weaknesses with a potential employer shows that you have a sense of self-worth.
It shows you can recognize that you have imperfections while still valuing your strengths. It is a fantastic way to show you see your value and can communicate it effectively.
Tips for Listing Your Character Strengths
Now that you understand the basic reasons why listing your character strengths is so important, you should focus on learning how to best articulate your incredible strengths. Your presentation is extremely important.
This is true for interviews, speaking to coworkers, and even in your personal life. So, you need to be as specific and vivid as possible. Ensure you have the strengths listed in the job posting g before applying to a position. This way, you can be confident that the strengths you list will impress the interviewer.
Knowledge-based skills
One skill set you have is called knowledge-based skills. These skills are the abilities you can acquire by going to school, reading a manual, or getting certified in a trade. They are typically specific to your field, but can also come in the form of technical skills.
For example, knowing a foreign language and C++ coding both fall in this category. To list these, show you received your knowledge from a credible source. Note how long it took you to get a degree and what degree you received if you got one as well.
Soft skills
Soft skills are personality related skills. They are often hard to teach others. These skills can include qualities such as leadership abilities, communication, empathy, emotional understanding, courage, and other similar qualities.
When listing these, it can be helpful to give an example of them in action. This can help you more clearly visualize what that skill means to you and give others proof you have it if you are listing skills on a job application.
Personal skills
Personal skills can relate to the way you interact with others. Many personal skills will also be soft skills. However, they can also involve some technical skills as well.
In general, the personal skill section should relate to how you can fit into a team, what unique abilities you have, and what skills help you connect with other people.
Identifying and Measuring Your Character Strengths
The very first step of starting a strengths journey and making a strengths list is to understand what your strengths are. You can easily learn of your strengths by taking a strengths test, such as HIGH5.
Your top character strengths will be listed in the results section. However, you can also self-reflect on what led to your greatest successes and deduce from there.
Once you know what your strengths are, it is time to get deeper into understanding and quantifying them. This can involve consistently, evaluating your performance at work, and evaluating your emotions consistently as well as noting changes in your strengths.
What are Professional Strengths?
Professional strengths are the strengths that apply to your work. They are any skill or quality that helps make you a better worker and improve your ability to be efficient as well as generally positive.
This can include qualities such as leadership, empathy, communication, teamwork, critical thinking, decision-making, and many other strengths.
In general, they will help you reach your potential in your field. Strengths allow you to maximize your opportunities and maximize the results you can provide others, such as by boosting your productivity or increasing the accuracy of your decisions.
Professional Strengths in the Workplace & for Job Interviews
Professional strengths play a vital role in the workforce as they contribute to individual and team success.
Their importance starts as soon as the job application is submitted and it continues through to your last days working at a certain company and beyond. Many are asked about their strengths during the interview process.
First impressions matter. Professional strengths matter immensely during your interview as they showcase an individual’s unique abilities, qualifications, and potential for success in a specific role.
Demonstrating awareness of one’s strengths allows candidates to highlight their relevant skills and experiences, aligning them with the requirements of the position and proving they have self-awareness.
It provides an opportunity for candidates to differentiate themselves from other applicants and leave a lasting impression on the interviewer by showcasing their humbleness while still being confident, and their capacity to be a great potential team member.
One crucial aspect of applying professional strengths at work is their impact on the team. When team members bring their respective strengths to the table, they can complement and support one another, creating a collaborative and high-performing environment.
For example, someone with strong leadership abilities can truly guide and motivate the team, while an individual with excellent problem-solving abilities can contribute innovative solutions to challenges.
By leveraging their unique strengths collaboratively, team members can achieve collective goals more efficiently and produce higher-quality outcomes while achieving team goals.
Personal Strengths and Traits of Leaders and Managers
Personal strengths and traits are extremely important to understand for every individual to help them further their career success, create new bonds with colleagues, inspire their team, better communicate, and so much more.
Every leader has quite an array of different strengths, so it is difficult to say just one specific list of traits all managers should have. Still, some of these top incredible abilities managers and leaders often use include:
Communication Strengths
Communication is a key part of being a great leader. Every day, you will be speaking with a wide array of individuals. They can be your colleagues like fellow managers, executives, employees, customers, and those you network with.
Communication abilities can help you empower your employees, help highlight your abilities as a manager and sell your products to more individuals as well.
Strengths for Providing Guidance and Direction
Leaders need to help individuals guide and direct them to help boost morale, increase positivity, inspire others, and generally support their employees. Strengths that can help with direction and guidance can include leadership abilities, communication, empathy, and much more.
At the end of the day, the employees will look to their leader for this guidance. Thus, having these strengths is truly necessary to maintain stability in the workplace and to empower employees.
Strengths for Supporting Staff
Companies typically have several support networks in place to assist their staff during hard times. As a manager or executive, it is part of your job to ensure these methods are readily available and easy to use.
Try to make sure you are available to talk with employees and see the deeper meaning behind any complaints they have. Be flexible, open, and empathetic.
Strengths for Decision-Making and Judgment
You will need to make significant decisions consistently if you wish to be a manager or company leader in general. As such, you must maintain strong decision-making and judgment abilities. Making poor decisions is very costly in competitive fields.
In fact, some mistakes can cost you your competitive advantage, which leads to missing out on immense numbers of customers. By using critical thinking, problem-solving, conflict management, and other skills, you can help ensure these negative outcomes do not become your reality.
Organizing and Planning Strengths
Planning is another crucially important skill for nearly all individuals to maintain. It can help you become more productive, achieve more goals, and feel more satisfied with your work.
Organization can provide many of the same benefits as well, such as by helping you spend less time searching for lost items and instead focusing on what you care about most. It decreases your frustration while saving you time and money as well.
Problem-Solving Strengths
Problem-solving strengths are extremely crucial for managers to have. As much as you may hope to avoid problems whenever possible, it is impossible to completely stay problem-free as a leader.
Therefore, you must focus on both problem-solving skills and avoiding issues as well. Problem-solving skills allow you to be more efficient, and it also helps your organization maintain an advantage over your competitors.
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