Running head: PERSONAL PORTFOLIO 1

Personal Portfolio

Brianna Frederick

LDRS 322: Leadership Strengths and Skills

Professor Andre Garces

October 29, 2019

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Personal Portfolio

Who are you?​ Between the limited inventories we completed this semester in our class,

I’ve discovered new insights being revealed each time. The strengths finder assessment, the

spiritual inventories test, and the values assessment have continuously provided a new

understanding of who I am and how I function the best.

Starting with the strengths inventory, which is through the clifton strength’s finder

assessment, my top five strengths were categorized as “restorative, achiever, significance, relater,

and learner.” In my own words, I have defined them differently than what they were initially

presented to me as. My top strength, restorative, is what I consider my problem solving ability. I

enjoy finding and solving problems in any scenario and the learning of new information to help

with this brings me joy. As an achiever, I have an innate desire to accomplish tasks, and to feel

as though I’ve achieved something each day in order to be satisfied. Productivity and constantly

being busy helps me feel as though I can achieve something each and every day. The latest

addition to my strengths was the addition of the significance trait. My opinion of this trait is

essentially I want to feel significant, I want to be known, I want to be noticed. In order to

continue accomplishing the good/hard work I do, I have to be noticed. I’m tired of living in the

shadows, and have a new innate desire to be recognized for my hard work and see the fruits of

the seeds I have planted.

Next was the relater trait, which I would define as my ability to read the emotions of

other people, and sympathize with them, no matter what they are going through. As a nurse, this

is an important trait, but as a person it can be extremely draining. As a realtor, I value my time

spent with others and hold that time dearly. I seek out people that are willing to be as transparent
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as I am in these type of friendships/relationships, and those that aren’t don’t stay in my friend

circle for long. Last but not least, the other skill I have been labeled with is the learner strength. I

am driven and excited to learn new information everyday, especially when it comes to the benefit

of those around me. I love learning and always feel as though I’ve accomplished something each

day if I’ve learned something new. I continuously want to improve and try my hardest in even

the simplest of tasks. A lot of these descriptions of the strengths I’ve been labeled with I have

developed over the past year, and can see how important each of these are in my life.

The next inventory I’ll go over was my spiritual one. My top two strengths for noticing

and worshipping God is naturalist and caregiving. Last year when I took these assessments, I

have no idea that spiritual temperaments existed, or that I had a preference between them. As a

naturalist I’ve come to realize that I see God best through nature, and I’m able to focus on Him

more when I am outside. I am the happiest in the outdoors, and I love camping and walking

around different areas. That’s because God is the source of my happiness and I often forget it,

especially when I’m in distress. I’ve learned I have to make time to get outside more. The second

half of this is the “caregiver” spiritual temperament. I’ve been constantly told I’m a servant

leader, and I am able to feel loved and feel at peace when I am helping others receive those same

feelings. I’m an action-oriented Christian and person, and believe that someone’s actions speak

way louder than other people’s words. If you’re not doing anything with your time, and you have

the time to, why aren’t you? I feel closest to God by seeing His people in their vulnerable stages,

and being able to meet them there. That’s what makes nursing such a perfect career for me,

because through my work I’ll be able to see God hands on in so many different ways.
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Last but not least we have taken the values assessment. Personally, I don’t recall taking

this assessment because I have missed many classes due to clinicals and other school of nursing

obligations. After a quick google search, I found a personal values assessment that I completed.

There isn’t really anything outstanding or epiphanies that I had with this particular assessment,

but what I do recall from class is that transparency is something I hold highly in every

workplace. If that one value is missing, it is difficult for me to complete my work to the best of

my ability.

How you make things unique.​ This is such a loaded statement. Starting with the four

stages of emotional intelligence: self-management, social awareness, self-awareness, and

relationship management, I’ve been able to identify and recognize each of these areas of my life.

In self-management, my strengths of achiever and learner completely shine through. I am

constantly goal setting, learning everything I can, and achieving those goals I set forth. I am able

to manage myself in a way that allows my internal motivation to take priority and keep me

going, even when things get tough. I am able to manage my time and myself in a way that’s

producing maximum productivity.

In social awareness, I believe my relater trait finds its spotlight. With my relater strength

highlighted, I am able to not only relate to what people are going through, but I can often times

offer a listening ear and sense of peace to these individuals. I am aware of the connections I can

make with other people in social situations, and just how important it is to be able to actively

listen instead of just talking all the time. While I am still learning about my subconscious

reactions in different social situations, I believe I’ve been able to grasp the facial expressions in

social situations. In self-awareness, the significance trait has started to haunt me. I’ve always
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known I like being recognized for my hard work and dedication, and I didn’t realize how

important that was to me until recently. I’ve become more self-aware that I need to be put into

situations where at least some of my work is getting recognized on a regular basis. If I don’t get

recognized for my hard work, I start to shut down and lose motivation for doing the deeds

required (and not required) of me.

Last but not least, I make relationship management incredibly unique. I have realized that

my learner trait is what keeps me engaged in different relationships. I need to learn something

from other people, or else my interest isn’t always kept in that person, friendship wise. In

addition to this, I’ve come to realize that my achiever trait is also true in my management of

relationships. I want to achieve certain goals with other people. Relator always plays a role in

this as well, because I put more time and effort into my more personal relationships that I allow

to become deeper, instead of every single relationship I form. Restorative peaks its head through

the door here as well, because I tend to form friendships with people who have a lot of

“baggage” and I always have the unrealistic expectation that I can help them solve those

problems. Which is hardly ever the case, but I try to manage my relationships in all of these

ways.

I can use all of my strengths through Bradberry’s four stages of Emotional Intelligence to

improve my EQ. By becoming aware of how each of these strengths finds itself in the different

areas of emotional intelligence, I can start to adapt, strengthen, and improve my EQ. In addition

to the emotional intelligence section of our class, there are leadership topics we’ve covered in

class that I see my strengths every day working. Continual learning and strengths based

leadership were two others components of this class that opened my eyes in a new way.
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In continual learning, I used to think it was only my learner trait that was keeping me

going; I didn’t realize how vital it was that my achiever trait was making itself known the entire

time. I like learning things because it helps me achieve other goals. It achieves my knowledge

need, my desire to learn something new every day, and my innate desire to know as much as I

can in general. With strengths based leadership, learning about each of these strengths opened up

more opportunities for growth.

In addition to all of this, I’ve recently learned of the fighting going on with my strengths,

where achiever is trying to take priority of relator, and it causes disequilibrium inside of me. My

top strengths are also my greatest weaknesses. When I’m not solving problems, I have those

feelings of worthlessness overwhelm me. When I’m not achieving my goals, I feel useless. When

I’m not learning something new, I tend to feel pointless. When I don’t have recognition for the

hard work I do, I feel insignificant. When I don’t have time with people I’ve formed close

friendships or relationships with, the rest of my friendships suffer. The weaknesses are always

haunting the strengths when I’m unable to adequately nourish them.

What you are going to do. ​I’m going to be the change the hospitals need. I’m going to

be bold, work hard, speak up, and reformat what leadership looks like in the workplace. I’ve

always known I wanted to go into nursing education and leadership, but I wasn’t quite sure

exactly what that looked like until now. I have so many great tools from learning about the

leadership theories, emotional and cultural intelligence, and other activities/discussions we’ve

had in class, that I have a well-rounded idea about the generalizations of leadership. There is no

correct way to lead, or one specific theory to follow, but it’s a combination of taking everything

you know/that has been researched and applying it uniquely to each of your situations. By
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recognizing this, I’m able to utilize and put this knowledge into practice. As God’s beloved

daughter, it is my mission to show the world the heart and love of God through my work, and by

how others see me. The current direction I’m considering is opening up my own nursing school

and/or running the emergency department in the hospital I chose to work at after getting my

experience as a floor nurse in that unit.