Leadership Summit--Greatest Moments #1

I'm missing the Leadership Summit this week.  For the first time in 5 years, I won't be glued to a large screen transmission coming from the home base of South Barrington, Illinois.  This year the schedule for the summit got sandwiched between a couple of church projects and a much needed family vacation.

So, I thought for the next few days I would reflect on the talks at Leadership Summit that have meant the most to me.

Here's what I'll be missing this week:

It will be hard to name them in order of importance in my life, but here are the ones I think stand out to me.

Leadership Summit 2007-Marcus Buckingham (Go Put Your Strengths To Work).  

This was the second time that I had heard Marcus Buckingham speak at Leadership Summit.  He is a fascinating speaker and I'd hear him again and again.  This talk was a follow up to his Strengths Finder talk in 2004 (?) and was based on his book of the same name.  This talk gave me some practical steps to follow in implementing the strategy to get to use more of my strengths in my job and in my other responsibilities.  I've never discovered another tool that so completely describes each individual that takes the test and then give such practical application to implement these findings. I have encouraged many in my life to take the test and then follow the plan to make these results real in your life.   Marcus could talk for 3 hours and still leave us wanting more and more from him.

Points of the talk:

Myth#1=As you grow, your personality changes and so does your strengths

Truth- As you grow, you become more and more of who you really are

Myth#2 You grow most in your areas of weakness

Truth- You grow most where you are already strong

Myth#3  A great team member puts his strength aside

Truth- Great team members volunteer their strength

I loved this line:  "Talk about your strengths without bragging and your weaknesses without whining"