In order to get an understanding of what my strengths are, I interviewed three different individuals. In my opinion, the views of these different individuals would give a reflection of what really would be my strengths. In order to get their feedback to follow up questions, I conducted my interviews by phone. Here are the names and the relationships of the persons I contacted in my interviews. Firstly, Andrew Nepal, a co-worker. Andrew and I were also classmates at Westfield one year ago. Secondly, Kevin Ryan, he is a church mate and a close family friend I have known since 2012, and lastly, Stanley Baya, my cousin.
My choice of these three is because they are persons that I have constant interactions with in their three different social settings. For example, I interact with Andrew mostly in the place of work and our friendship has blossomed because of our professional association. On the other hand, Kevin and I meet almost every Sunday at church where we sit in different committees of leadership. And for Stanley, he has known me since grade school and we not only interact individually as relations but also at family gatherings.
An examination of the views discussed here below, and summarized in the tables at the end, from these three individuals, should shed more light on what strengths I may possess if any at all. I tried to reduce redundant information as much as possible, so that whatever is included in the tables and in the discussion is what I felt like was unique as mentioned to me by my interviewees. Firstly, according to Andrew, some of the outstanding strengths he sees in me are; calmness even under pressure, care or attention to detail, commitment and socially outgoing.
He holds these views in light of different incidences that have taken place at our workplace. Andrew says that he has observed my conduct during times when other people ordinarily would have panicked, and he says in me, he sees a person who seems to be in total control of his emotions and aware of his surroundings. Additionally, he says that I portray a sense of attention to detail. This is because sometimes different colleagues may accept checks or reports that have errors in them, but those reports or checks will be screened out when they come into my desk. Also, Andrew says that, I possess a sense of commitment.
In explaining this he remembered a semester, which he had signed a statistics course which gave him trouble. He remembered how | committed to help him for free, three hours a week until the end of the semester. Finally, he reminded me that my social attributes earned me the friendliest employee title, six months after my appointment. Kevin, on the other hand, thinks that my profound strength is displayed in; wisdom, kindness, diligence and accommodativeness. On wisdom, he reminded me of how | dealt with a marriage standoff that was about to escalate. The husband and wife were blaming each other on a nearconfrontation.
When they gave me a chance to speak, I asked them to name the stuff that they felt the other person had done that seemed great. As they started mentioning those things, they realized that each cared for the other and that they both had the best of the marriage at heart. Secondly, Kevin spoke of my kindness. He reminded me about this young couple that my wife and I, welcomed to our home when they were planning their wedding. We helped them financially and with free counseling toward their marriage. Speaking about diligence, Kevin mentioned about the days that I have had to stay late at the church to accomplish a given assignment.
Finally, he reminded me of my accommodativeness, sighting a particular time when our church planned for a men’s event, in order to make the even more appealing, I made sure that men from across the cultural spectrum of the church were involved in the organizing committee for the event. On his part Stanley, my cousin feels that I exude tremendous strength of focus, perseverance, dependability and integrity, and cooperativeness. Talk about focus, Stanley, mentioned about how in my schooling back in Kenya, there was a time I was dropped out of college for six years for lack of finances but the dream stayed.
Immediately I finally got another job, I went back to school, graduating nine years after my admission! Moreover, he spoke of his amazement at my ability to persevere, given that am the first born in a family of 12 children, I set a good example of completing high school, joining college and getting my CPA certification in Kenya. My high school and college life was affected by constant lack of finances since my parents did not go to school and neither did they have any trade or source of income. He added that this achievement was only possible as a result of diligence.
Especially given that since I completed high school until now, I have managed to pay for the education of seven of my siblings in their high school and college without comprising my values along the way. And finally, he mentioned of my cooperativeness in leadership which comes to display during family gatherings. When it happens that we have a conflict in the family, he observed that many times I call for family meetings and under my leadership family members iron out their differences respectfully. Looking at this list of strengths mentioned above, I realized that I have more strengths than | ever thought.
For instance, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that people think that I possess a calmness even under pressure. This is special because I always thought of myself as being easily panicked. This is a quality that I had desired to possess for some time and I didn’t realize that people can already see it in me. On the contrary though, I was surprised that no one mentioned that I was a fast learner! I always thought of myself as a fast learner, and I thought it was an attribute that would be immediately noticeable.
Though this information is encouraging, it is not conclusive since I only interviewed three different people who are only in three spheres of my life. In my thinking, if I increased the number of my respondents to include others such as business associates, neighbors and teammates, there is a big chance that many more positive attributes will be uncovered. Having said that, however, this study is still useful because those traits that I feel didn’t come out and I wish they were noticed will be my focus and source of motivation going forward.
Moreover, this information is a good tool for my resume in career development and also offers a good point of reference should the need for recommendation letters arise. In conclusion, this was a very informative exercise. Though some of the attributes that came out seemed a little bit exaggerated because maybe the respondents may have been biased, there seemed to be a general direction of positive strengths that am able to use in building my confidence in my daily living.