What Are the Strengths in Strengthsfinder?
Understanding the 34 Talent Themes
The CliftonStrengths assessment (formerly StrengthsFinder) identifies 34 distinct talent themes that represent natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. These themes are the foundation of the strengths-based approach developed by Don Clifton.
When you take the assessment, you receive your top 5 talent themes, which represent your most dominant natural talents. However, all 34 themes exist on a spectrum, and understanding the complete framework helps you appreciate the diversity of human talent.
The Four Domains of Strength
The 34 talent themes are organized into four domains that represent broader categories of how people can excel:
Executing
These themes describe how you make things happen. People with dominant Executing talents know how to take thoughts and ideas and turn them into reality.
- Achiever: Driven to accomplish tasks
- Arranger: Master of flexibility and coordination
- Belief: Guided by core values
- Consistency: Fair-minded and egalitarian
- Deliberative: Careful and vigilant
- Discipline: Creates structure and routine
- Focus: Sets clear goals and priorities
- Responsibility: Takes psychological ownership
- Restorative: Problem-solver who enjoys fixing things
Influencing
These themes describe how you take charge, speak up, and make sure others are heard. People with dominant Influencing talents know how to reach a broader audience and make an impact.
- Activator: Impatient for action
- Command: Unafraid to take charge
- Communication: Explains, describes, and hosts
- Competition: Measures progress against others
- Maximizer: Focuses on strengths and excellence
- Self-Assurance: Confident in abilities and decisions
- Significance: Wants to be important in others' eyes
- Woo (Winning Others Over): Enjoys meeting new people
Relationship Building
These themes describe how you build strong relationships that can hold a team together and make the team greater than the sum of its parts.
- Adaptability: Goes with the flow
- Connectedness: Believes in links between all things
- Developer: Recognizes and cultivates potential
- Empathy: Senses others' feelings
- Harmony: Seeks consensus and agreement
- Includer: Accepting of others
- Individualization: Intrigued by unique qualities
- Positivity: Generates enthusiasm
- Relator: Enjoys close relationships
Strategic Thinking
These themes describe how you absorb, analyze, and consider information and situations. People with dominant Strategic Thinking talents help teams consider what could be and make better decisions.
- Analytical: Seeks reasons and causes
- Context: Understands the present by researching the past
- Futuristic: Inspired by what could be
- Ideation: Fascinated by ideas
- Input: Collector of information and things
- Intellection: Enjoys thinking and mental activity
- Learner: Enthusiastic about the process of learning
- Strategic: Creates alternative ways to proceed
From Talent to Strength
It's important to understand the distinction between talents and strengths in the CliftonStrengths framework:
Talents
Naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. Talents are innate and represent your raw potential.
Strengths
The ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance in a specific activity. Strengths are developed when you combine your natural talents with knowledge and skills through practice and investment.
The formula for developing strengths is: Talent × Investment = Strength
This means that while you're born with certain talents, you must invest time and effort to develop them into true strengths that deliver consistent excellence.
Why Focus on Strengths?
The strengths-based approach represents a paradigm shift from traditional development methods:
Traditional Approach
- Focuses on fixing weaknesses
- Assumes anyone can be competent in anything
- Leads to marginal improvement in areas of weakness
- Often results in frustration and disengagement
Strengths Approach
- Focuses on maximizing strengths
- Recognizes unique talents in each individual
- Leads to exponential growth in areas of natural talent
- Results in higher engagement and fulfillment
Research by Gallup has shown that people who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged in their jobs and three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life.
Applying Your Strengths
Understanding your talent themes is just the beginning. The real value comes from applying this knowledge:
Career Development
Choose roles and responsibilities that align with your natural talents. For example, someone with strong Influencing themes might thrive in sales or leadership positions, while someone with dominant Strategic Thinking themes might excel in research or planning roles.
Team Effectiveness
Build teams with complementary strengths. When team members understand each other's talents, they can collaborate more effectively and leverage their collective strengths.
Personal Growth
Identify areas where you can further develop your talents into strengths through education, practice, and seeking out opportunities that allow you to use your natural abilities.
Relationship Building
Understand how your strengths interact with others' strengths, and appreciate different perspectives and approaches.
Take the Next Step
Now that you understand the 34 talent themes and the philosophy behind strengths-based development, why not discover your own top talents?
Our free assessment will help you identify your signature strengths and provide guidance on how to apply them in your personal and professional life.