Start With What Is Already Strong
Leadership development should not be reserved for the workplace.
This series takes ideas from leadership books, research, tools, and frameworks and explores what they can teach us about leading Mom Life.
You do not need to have read the book or used the tool. Each article pulls forward an idea worth considering and translates it into something you can put into practice in your own life.
StrengthsFinder, now known as CliftonStrengths®, the Gallup assessment developed by Don Clifton to identify a person's natural talents. I first encountered it early in my career, and I have returned to it in different seasons since — personally, professionally, and with teams.
Why This One
What has always stood out to me about StrengthsFinder is where it starts. Not with what is broken or lacking, but with what is already strong.
That is a rare starting point. Most of the messages we absorb about becoming better begin somewhere else — with the gap, the weakness, the thing that does not come naturally. Become more organized. Be more patient. Speak up more. Slow down.
Moms are certainly not immune to those messages. There is always another version of the Mom we could supposedly become if we just improved enough things about ourselves.
Strengths-based thinking flips that. Instead of asking what you should fix, it asks:
What is already there? And what could happen if you became more intentional about using it?
The Big Idea
The tool itself is not really the point.
The bigger leadership idea is self-awareness: understanding what you naturally bring, where you are most effective, what gives you energy, and where those same tendencies can sometimes get in your way.
Maybe a tool or framework has given you language for that before. Maybe you have simply learned it through experience. Either way, there can be a moment of recognition: Yes. That is exactly how I operate.
But knowing it is only the beginning. The more useful question is: What do I do with what I know about my strengths?
That is where strengths become a leadership practice.
Bring It Home
So much of motherhood can feel like an ongoing inventory of what we should be doing better. We should be more patient, more present, more organized, more empathetic, more consistent. Better at meal planning. Better at managing schedules. Better at creating traditions. Better at keeping the house together. Better at slowing down and enjoying it all while we are doing it.
What if we started somewhere else? Instead of beginning with What kind of Mom should I become?, what if we asked: What kind of leader am I already?
Think about the moments when Mom Life feels like it is going particularly well. Maybe you are the person who creates structure when everything feels chaotic. Maybe you intuitively notice when one of your kids needs something before she says it. Maybe you bring humor when everyone is taking things too seriously. Maybe you research the options. Maybe you make the decision everyone else has been avoiding. Maybe you bring people together. Maybe you are the person who can take a complicated situation and make it feel manageable.
Those are clues. They tell you something about what you naturally bring to your family.
Once you recognize those strengths, you can start asking a different question: Where would this be especially useful right now? If you are great at creating structure, perhaps the beginning of a new school year is a moment to lean into that. If connection comes naturally to you, maybe your leadership is especially valuable when a child is navigating a difficult friendship. If you naturally see possibilities, perhaps you are the person who can help your family imagine another solution when something is not working.
The goal is not to become good at everything. It is to become more intentional about what you already bring.
That does not mean the person who is best at something should carry it forever. If Mom is great at planning, that does not mean every schedule, appointment, vacation, activity, and logistical decision should permanently belong to her.
Being good at something and being solely responsible for it are not the same thing.
In Practice
My own CliftonStrengths are Significance, Strategic, Self-Assurance, Ideation, and Maximizer. I could explain each one individually, but what has become much more useful to me is recognizing the pattern they create together.
I naturally see possibilities and connections. I start thinking about possible paths forward. I am comfortable choosing a direction. And once something is working, I almost immediately start thinking about how it could work even better.
Understanding that pattern has helped me stop treating some of those instincts as quirks and start using them more intentionally. It is part of why systems thinking comes naturally to me at home. When something repeatedly creates friction, or when there is something I want to make easier or more intentional, my instinct is to ask whether we could create a different approach.
It is also part of how Chief of Mom Life came to exist. I saw a connection between leadership development and motherhood — two worlds we rarely put together — and wanted to explore what might be possible if we did.
But strengths require self-awareness on the other side, too. My Maximizer can make "good enough" difficult. Strategic can mean I am several steps ahead before everyone else has had time to process step one. Ideation can create far more possibilities than I have the capacity to pursue.
Knowing what I naturally bring helps me use it. Knowing when I am overusing it helps me lead it.
You do not need to take an assessment or know your Top 5 to start. This week, pay attention to the moments when you feel particularly effective as a Mom. Notice what you are doing. Then ask yourself:
What seems to come naturally to me? Where could I use more of that right now? When does that same quality become less helpful because I am overusing it?
If you already have results from CliftonStrengths, Myers-Briggs, Working Genius, DISC, or another tool sitting in a folder somewhere, pull them back out. Do not just ask whether they still sound like you — ask what they might teach you about the way you are leading your life and your family today.
The tool may give you language. The leadership comes from what you do with it.
Leadership development does not always have to begin by identifying what needs to change. Sometimes, the most useful place to start is understanding what is already strong and deciding how you want to put it to work.
CliftonStrengths® is a registered trademark of Gallup, Inc. Myers-Briggs® is a trademark or registered trademark of the Myers & Briggs Foundation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Chief of Mom Life is not affiliated with or endorsed by these organizations.
This post is part of an ongoing exploration of the idea that motherhood is leadership. To read the essay that started this work, see Motherhood Is Leadership.
Read the essay →