Achiever

Characteristics of achiever

Let’s talk about what achiever

Achiever by itself is about completion.

Very often, I think we can confuse it with competition with responsibility with activator with arranger. When we look at what happens sort of the moving pieces of how we get things done, achiever is unique in that it’s about finishing. Now that means that people with achiever have this internal drive to finish. Very often, they may have more energy, more stamina, more momentum than others. The image that I have in my head for achiever is that of old movies that I’ve watched that show the inner workings of like a big ship. And I think about the engine room, and there’s all these moving pieces, but it just keeps chugging forward, my 18 month old would be thrilled that I’m starting to talk about Chuck, because he’s a big fan of trains. But it is that drive, it’s that internal burning, and that forward drive to complete things. If you look at the companion guide, what we’ve given you here is the full definition. I think it’s incredibly helpful if you’ve got achiever to really understand what we mean how we define achiever. What the science behind Clifton Strengths suggests that theme of talent includes a you’ll notice some things like a a whisper of discontent. It’s one of my favorite sentences in that definition.

There’s always something more that can be completed. achievers, as leaders might have a little bit different of a definition than they do as individual contributors. The Five Minute achiever, I can manage my to do list by checking it off, I might wake up in the morning, starting every day at zero, looking forward to what can I complete. Now if I’m a leader of other people, I might use that in a little bit of a different way. I can be a Pace Setter, helping other people understand what we as a collective need to complete, I can be an energizer using that engine sort of from the back rather than from the front and helping cheer people on. I think about when, when I was young, my family for one Christmas got a Nintendo, and we had one game. And the one game was a car racing game. And it was before computers were cool.

There was like two tracks you could choose from, and you raced around in circles until the race was over. And there were these checkpoints that you could go through. That was actually what they were called. And every time you hit a checkpoint, your car that you were driving on this Nintendo game went a little bit faster. That comes to mind when I think about achiever as a leader, being able to notice completion and celebrate it means that you can help people see even if the task seems huge, you can help people see what the progress is toward that task. You can take a look at season one, Scott Caldwell talks about his achiever in a almost a performance management mode. He talks about it my 5% complete and my 10% complete and my 50% Complete.

There’s that pace setting that comes with achiever and again it is because you’re driven to to fix that whisper of discontent at all times. It is the productivity theme. It’s the doing theme. It’s about momentum and energy. But I think as a leader, it’s also about serving, it’s about creating acts, completing acts for other people. If you look at the bottom of the first page of our companion guide, what we’re talking about here are the four needs of followers. gallops really started to dive into leadership by studying followers. We know that regardless of what kind of a leader you are, what you all have in common is that you have followers. And so we’ve we asked a millions of different followers, what is it that they that they get from leaders who they admire or leaders who they who they willingly follow. And we know that willing followership is comprised of about four areas, trust, compassion, stability, and hope. Again, you can read quite a bit more of this if you pick up the strengths based leadership book, what I wanted to think about and what I’d love for you to listen for, as we hear some stories from Dell, is how can achiever instill these four things in their followers?

A few ideas I have for you are, a leader might use achiever to instill trust by delivering on what they promise, that might seem super simple. But if you’re moving from the individual contributor, position into a leader with achiever, you might, you might need to get used to promising something before you complete it. Think about communicating out loud, here’s where we’re going so that when you deliver on it, it’s that follow through. You might also create trust by inviting others to work with with you, achiever and relator show up quite often together, and we find that relator has that desire to work hard in close relationships with others. So when you think about putting those together, you could create trust by thinking about how do I invite people into the engine room

How do I invite people in to work hard with me? A little bit about compassion. achiever can show compassion by thinking about some servanthood. How could you serve others through tasks? When I had my my baby, I thought that everybody around me was crazy, because all I wanted was quiet. And then I realized, Oh, they’re not crazy. They’re achievers. My husband and his family showed up, and they installed a new disposal in our kitchen. And they, they built a porch that I had always said I wanted and I remember totally losing my mind full of hormones and just crying to my husband and saying, Why can’t people just sit still? And my husband Bless his heart said, Micah, you know that that strength thing that I have? Well, well, they have it to that one that makes me do things. And that was the moment that I knew he really loved me because he was willing to talk strengths back to me, about him and and those who loved me, but that sort of compassion piece, I think achiever is what can I do for you? What can I complete for you.

Another way that leaders show compassion through achiever is by being willing to help navigate, I think about leaders with high achiever who can take a big task that others might be facing that feels daunting, and give them some idea of how we can break that big task down into milestones. It’s a fantastic way to say, you know, we’re here with you, we’re going to celebrate the 510 15% completion. Just a few more ideas, achiever could provide stability by communicating progress, not just completion, that might be a little bit of a stretch for a Cheever, sometimes, because we’ve got our eyes so far on the goal of what is the end look like sometimes, even reflecting that that milestone idea back on yourself so that you can communicate, here’s how far we’ve come.

You do have that awareness to you, it might feel like discontent. But if you can help people understand what has been completed, even if it’s not over that can that can help provide stability, celebrate those milestones, not just the very end, and how can achieve or create hope, my favorite four letter word. achiever, I think is always wondering what’s next. And sometimes that can mean that achiever doesn’t slow down enough to celebrate, but that that wonder of what’s next is something we could lean into. I think that’s hopeful, because you’re looking for what’s next. Maybe you’re also helping other people see what’s next. And that can mean helping other people see what’s better. Celebrate achievements, talk about the effort as well. The best part of achiever and I think the most that achiever has to give is elbow grease. It’s just the courage to roll up your sleeves and do it and sometimes that’s what people need in order to, to instill hope sometimes people need to hear this task is going to be hard and we’re going to work hard toward it.