StrengthsFinder Leadership Book: Stop Trying to Be Well-Rounded

The short verdict: if you manage people, buy this book new; if nobody reports to you, buy StrengthsFinder 2.0 instead; if you already know your themes, a used copy is enough.

When people search for the StrengthsFinder leadership book, they mean Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow, by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie. Gallup Press published it in 2009. Conchie headed Gallup's global leadership research and development business and was a senior scientist there until 2013. Rath had already written StrengthsFinder 2.0, the book that sells the CliftonStrengths test to individuals. This one takes the same 34 talent themes and asks what they mean for someone in charge of other people. Gallup still lists it on its page of CliftonStrengths books, and new copies still carry a code for the test.

The book rests on three sets of Gallup data: a study covering more than a million work teams, more than 20,000 in-depth interviews with leaders, and a survey of more than 10,000 followers who were asked why they followed the most important leader in their lives. Tom Rath's site sums up the follower findings in a few lines. From all of it, the authors pull one argument that runs through every chapter. Leaders do better when they know their strengths and build a team that covers the rest, instead of trying to be good at everything themselves. The book makes that case through four leader profiles: Wendy Kopp of Teach For America, Simon Cooper of The Ritz-Carlton, Brad Anderson of Best Buy, and Mervyn Davies of Standard Chartered Bank. Each one leads in a very different way, from a different set of strengths.

It is a short book in two halves. The argument takes up the first half. The second half is reference: one entry per theme, all 34 of them, with ideas for leading with that theme and for getting the best from people who have it.

Is Strengths Based Leadership Worth Reading?

For a new manager, mostly yes, and mostly for the reference half. Look up your five themes and you get specific ideas for building trust or giving hope in the way that comes easiest to you. A leader high in Relator gets a very different route to trust than a leader high in Command. That makes it a book you keep near your desk and open before a hard one-to-one, more than a book you read once.

The first half is thinner. The research is summarized rather than shown, and if you have read other strengths books, the argument will feel familiar by the second chapter. A good strengths based leadership summary gets you the argument in ten minutes. What a summary cannot give you is the code and the personal guide that comes with it, and for most buyers that is the reason to own the book.

The book sorts its advice into three keys. First, know your own strengths and invest in the strengths of the people around you. Second, get people with the right mix of strengths onto your team. Third, understand the four needs that make people follow a leader, and meet them. The first key is where the test comes in. The second is where the domains come in. The third is the part most readers remember.

What Are the Four Domains of Leadership Strength?

Rath and Conchie grouped the themes into four domains of leadership strength, and Gallup still uses those four groups in its reports. Each domain names a job a team needs someone to cover:

• Executing. Leaders strong here turn plans into shipped work. They know how to get a thing done and will stay on it until it is. They tend to be the first to notice a deadline slipping. Themes: Achiever, Arranger, Belief, Consistency, Deliberative, Discipline, Focus, Responsibility, Restorative.
• Influencing. These leaders sell ideas, inside the team and out. They take charge in a room, speak up early, and make sure the group gets heard by the people who set budgets. Themes: Activator, Command, Communication, Competition, Maximizer, Self-Assurance, Significance, Woo.
• Relationship Building. These leaders hold a group together. They notice who is struggling, turn separate people into one unit, and make it safe to disagree. Themes: Adaptability, Connectedness, Developer, Empathy, Harmony, Includer, Individualization, Positivity, Relator.
• Strategic Thinking. These leaders keep the team pointed at what comes next. They take in information, weigh the options, and spot the problem behind the problem. Themes: Analytical, Context, Futuristic, Ideation, Input, Intellection, Learner, Strategic.

The point of the domains is that no leader needs all four. The book warns against the leader who tries to cover every one alone and ends up average at each. A team is at its best when its members span the four, and the leader's job is to see which domains are thin and bring in people who fill them.

What Are the Four Needs of Followers?

The third key comes from the follower survey. When Gallup asked people what their most important leader gave them, the answers kept landing on the same four needs. Gallup's write-up of the four needs adds a figure for each. Where followers trusted their leader, one in two was engaged at work. Where they did not, it was one in twelve. Here is each need, with something a leader can do about it this month.

• Trust. People need to know you will do what you said. Keep a written list of what you promised each person and close it out in your next one-to-one. When you cannot deliver, tell them before they find out.
• Compassion. People need to know you care about them, and about more than their output. Ask about the thing they mentioned last week. When they take time off, keep it off.
• Stability. People need a leader who stays level when the company shakes. In Gallup's data, followers who saw their company's financial future as secure were nine times more likely to be engaged. Share news about changes early, including the parts you do not know yet.
• Hope. People need to believe next year will be better than this one. Say where the team is headed and name one step toward it each quarter. Cheerful talk does not count. A plan they can see does.

Each of the 34 theme entries near the end is then filtered through these four needs. Look up Achiever and you get ideas for building trust, showing compassion, giving stability, and creating hope as someone who leads with Achiever. It is the most practical part of the book, and it is the part most summaries leave out.

Here is the shape of one entry, in our own words, so you know what the back half looks like. Take a leader high in Achiever:

• Trust. Your team sees you finish what you start, so they believe you when you commit. Keep your promises small enough to keep.
• Compassion. Your pace can wear people out. Ask who needs a lighter week before you hand out the next goal.
• Stability. Your steady output is a signal. Hold a weekly rhythm of goals and reviews, even in a messy quarter.
• Hope. Break a big aim into milestones and mark each one, so the team can see progress it would otherwise miss.

A new hardcover lists at $19.99 on Gallup's books page, and every new copy of the StrengthsFinder leadership book carries a CliftonStrengths code you can redeem once. It is the same test Gallup sells on its own site. You pick between paired statements, with a short time limit on each, for about 35 minutes. At the end, Gallup shows you your five strongest themes.

What sets this code apart from the one in StrengthsFinder 2.0 is the extra report. Gallup says the leadership book's code comes with three personal reports on your top five, one of them a Strengths Based Leadership Guide. The guide goes through your five themes one at a time and gives leadership ideas for each, following the four needs: how to build trust with that theme, how to show compassion with it, and so on. If you already took CliftonStrengths with a different code, Gallup's help center confirms a new code can unlock extra reports on your existing results, or you can use it to take the test again.

Does Strengths Based Leadership Come With an Access Code?

Yes, new copies do, and the code works once.

The strengths based leadership access code comes only in new copies and in Kindle copies bought from Amazon in the U.S., U.K., or Canada, where Amazon emails the code after purchase. It is printed inside the back of the book and works for one redemption. After that it is spent, for everyone. That is why the Amazon listing says in its title that brand new copies include the code. A used copy almost always carries a spent code, even when the envelope looks untouched, and library copies are the same.

Two more things catch buyers out. The code shows your top five, not all 34. For the full ranking you pay Gallup for an upgrade, listed at $49.99 on its assessment products page. And if the leadership angle is all you want, Gallup also sells a CliftonStrengths for Leaders report on its own, also $49.99, with no book attached. Our note on which Amazon copies of StrengthsFinder carry a working code goes through new, Kindle, and used.

The readers who gain most from the StrengthsFinder leadership book are new managers and team leads in their first year or two. They have a team, no habits yet, and a need for ideas they can use on Monday. The domains give them a way to look at their team, and the four needs give them a checklist for each person on it. Someone running their first team of five can put the book to work the week it arrives. If that is you and you want team exercises too, our plan for running StrengthsFinder with a team covers the team grid and a first session.

Senior leaders get less out of it, since most already know their style. It still helps as shared language: hand it to every manager below you and they start using the same words for the same things.

A third reader is the individual contributor wondering whether to lead at all. For them the book is the wrong first step, because it teaches how to lead with your themes and skips the bigger question. Read our guide to leadership personality assessments or our look at how 399 managers are wired before you pick up a leadership book.

Weak in a Leadership Domain? Reach It Through the Themes You Have

The book's answer to a weak domain is to hire or partner for it. That works on a big team. It is harder when you lead three people, or lead alone, as many founders and first-time managers do. Three moves help there.

First, come at the weak domain through a strong one. A leader thin on Influencing but strong in Relationship Building can persuade one person at a time over coffee instead of from a stage. A leader thin on Executing but strong in Strategic Thinking can design the process once, write it down, and let the steps do the chasing. Second, find the domain outside your team. A peer, a mentor, or a client can play the Influencing part in a review your team would otherwise handle poorly. Third, make the gap a standing item on the calendar: a Friday list of what shipped, or a monthly note to your boss about the team's wins. A rule covers for the missing theme on the days you would forget. Our guide to the balcony and basement of each theme shows where one of your strengths may already be covering the gap, and where it makes the gap worse.

Gallup publishes several books that come with a CliftonStrengths code, and they overlap. They all give you the same test. What changes is the guide that comes with your results and the reader the writing has in mind.

Book or report

Written for

What the code adds

Pick it if

Strengths Based Leadership (Rath and Conchie, 2009)

People who lead a team

Your top five themes plus a Strengths Based Leadership Guide

You manage people and want leadership ideas for each of your themes

StrengthsFinder 2.0 (Rath, 2007)

Anyone curious about their own talents

Your top five themes plus ideas for putting each one to use

You want to know your themes and nobody reports to you

It's the Manager (Clifton and Harter, 2019)

Managers and the executives above them

A CliftonStrengths code

You run managers and want Gallup's case for coaching over bossing

Both books as a bundle

Leaders who want both reference sections

Two codes: one for the test, and one that Gallup says can unlock extra reports on those same results

You want both books on the shelf and do not mind paying for the test twice

CliftonStrengths for Leaders (no book)

Leaders who only want the report

Leader-focused insights, pitfalls, and reflection questions, $49.99 from Gallup

You want the leadership report and can skip the reading

What Is the Difference Between StrengthsFinder 2.0 and Strengths Based Leadership?

StrengthsFinder 2.0 explains each theme for you as a person and gives you ideas for action. Strengths Based Leadership explains each theme for you as someone in charge, and adds the four needs of followers. If nobody reports to you, the leadership advice has no one to land on. If anyone does, buy the leadership book, since its code does everything the other code does and adds the guide. You only need the strengthsfinder 2.0 and strengths based leadership bundle if you want both reference sections on your shelf. For the other code's details, read what comes in the StrengthsFinder 2.0 access packet.

Should I Take StrengthsFinder 2.0 or CliftonStrengths 34?

They are the same test. What differs is how much of the ranking you get to see. A code from a book gives you your top five. CliftonStrengths 34 costs $59.99 from Gallup and ranks every theme, bottom included. For a leader the bottom matters, because it shows the work you are most likely to put off or pass along without noticing. Start with the book if you want the leadership guide, then upgrade if five themes leave you curious. Pay Gallup for the complete ranking up front when you are sure you want every theme. For every price, see Gallup StrengthsFinder prices, tier by tier.

A Used Copy Gets You the Book but Not the Test

A used copy of the StrengthsFinder leadership book is fine for reading and close to useless for the test, because the first owner almost certainly redeemed the code. If you already know your themes, a used copy is the cheapest way to get the ideas. You lose the personal leadership guide, but every theme still gets its own printed entry near the end.

Start With the Leadership Book If You Manage Anyone

If you manage people, start here and skip StrengthsFinder 2.0, since both run one test and this book adds more on top. If you manage nobody, start with StrengthsFinder 2.0 or with our overview of Gallup StrengthsFinder, then come back to this book if you take on a team later.

Go Beyond the StrengthsFinder Leadership Book: Ask Whether to Lead at All

The book shows you how to lead with the talents you have. It leaves a harder question with you: is leading people the work that suits you? Plenty of strong individual contributors get promoted into management, read the right books, and still dread Monday, because the job asks them all day for things they find draining: conflict, status meetings, and other people's problems. A list of your top five themes will not show you that.

Pigment was built for that question, as a leadership assessment alternative to StrengthsFinder that looks past talent. Its 120 forced-choice questions make you pick between pulls a new manager feels every week, like running the meeting or doing the deep work yourself. Your results cover how you process information, reach decisions, and team up with others. They show each strength next to its shadow side and point to the sort of work that sustains you. That helps you judge whether a manager's week fits you before you sign up for one. The report closes with roles that match your profile, some in leadership and some not. It is meant for your eyes, not a hiring manager's.

Find Out If Leading Fits You

Your five themes show how you might lead. Your Pigment results show whether a leader's week suits you, and which other roles do. The report runs 36 pages and costs $79.99.

See where you fit