Blog Post # 1 Lauren Milazzo

After taking the StrengthsQuest, my top five strengths were harmony, achiever, discipline, consistency and responsibility. Last winter, I participated in the Strengths Coaching Program so I learned a lot about all 32 strengths and specifically focused on analyzing mine. Four of my strengths, achiever, consistency, discipline, and responsibility, all fall into the executing category. My fifth strength, harmony, falls into the relationship building category. Since four strengths are in the executing category, I think it’s easy to say they definitely interact! I also think achiever, consistency, discipline and responsibility all go hand in hand with being a determined person who wants to excel and succeed with whatever project they’re working on. Achiever means you have a drive to work hard to achieve something and in order to achieve something you need to be disciplined and responsible. Harmony seems like an odd ball out with my other four strengths but I think preferring agreement over conflict is beneficial when you’re trying to achieve something—especially in a group situation.

I see all five of my strengths contributing to my experience with the Board Immersion in several different ways. I hope my determination will allow me to become more knowledgeable about nonprofit boards. I also think my determination to do well will really show through with the project that I’ll be doing for the nonprofit. I also think my discipline and responsibility will keep me on top of all the class readings and assignments, as well as helping me stay on track with the project deadlines. I can also see my strength harmony playing a role with my involvement on the board for the non-profit. If there ever were disagreements or differences of opinions on the board, I could see myself stepping in to try and avoid conflict. Overall, I think I will be mostly using the strengths: achiever, discipline, harmony and responsibility.

Since I learned so much about strengths in the program I participated in, I really don’t have any questions. I will be curious at the end of the program to see how accurately I predicted my strengths usage.