Guest Contributor: Daniel J Pesut

Strengths and Contributions

As a coach and educator, I encourage people to learn  and know their top five signature strengths as they develop nursing science and create a nursing leadership legacy (Pesut, 2001; 2004;  2022, 2023; Allison Napolitano & Pesut, 2015). I invite you to watch the Strengths Based Leadership for Nursing Science presentation linked with this blog. Taking strengths, values  and character assessments helps one clarify talents, gifts, and contributions they make in the world. As you watch the presentation  you will learn about Tom  Rath and  Barry Conchie’s work (2008). They  have fine-tuned a strengths’ assessment that helps people discern their  leadership strengths and relate the strengths they possess to the needs followers have; namely,  trust, compassion, stability, and hope. Knowing one’s strengths helps  to create, clarify and craft  one’s personal vision, and mission. In addition to strengths, another valuable source of information is Tom Rath’s  (2020) assessment that identifies ones’ contributions. Rath believes contributions are answers to life’s greatest question: What do you contribute to the world ? Three domains of contribution are: creating, relating, and operating. Initiating, challenging, teaching, and visioning are within the create domain. The relate domain includes contributions of connecting, energizing, perceiving, and influencing. Within the operate domain are the contributions and talents of organizing, achieving, adapting, and scaling. Gaining insight into one’s strengths and contributions supports inner work that leads to outer service ( Pesut, 2004). Strengths and contributions complement, activate and are synergistic with  one’s values and virtues.

Values and Virtues

The Values in Action (VIA) Survey from the VIA Institute on Character assesses 24-character strengths  that provide insight and guidance to individuals interested in knowing more about themselves and what they value. The character strengths are grouped by the virtue categories of wisdom, courage, humility, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Knowledge of character strengths and values increases legacy leadership insights and action. As one comes to appreciate the distinctions of strengths and character, one gains insight  about the values, beliefs, talents, skills, and contributions they bring to an organization, projects, the  development of nursing science . These insights support the creation and development  of  a nursing leadership legacy.

Legacy Leadership

Leadership scholars James Kouzes and  Barry Posner note, “…legacies are not the result of wishful thinking. They are the results of determined doing. The legacy you leave is the life you lead. We live our lives daily. We leave our legacy daily. The people you see, the decisions you make, and the actions you take—they are what tell your story (Kouzes & Posner, 2006, p. 180). Dr. Pamela Hinds and colleagues (2015) have proposed legacy mapping  as a way to document meaningful work in nursing. Legacy mapping begins with two questions: (a) What do you want to improve in nursing through your efforts, and (b) What would you like to be best known for? Hinds and her colleagues have developed a systematic way to create a career legacy map with intention and purpose. Legacy planning and legacy mapping integrates aspects of  career goal planning while attending to issues of  meaning and purpose in terms of self and others. Legacy planning and mapping is an interactive process and shared experience  between mentors and mentees as well as between leaders and followers. Legacy mapping is informed by knowing one’s strengths, contributions, and values.

As executive coaches Dr. Jeannine Sandstrom and  Dr. Lee Smith (2017) note, ,  “Legacy in leadership is not about leaving something behind. It is about influencing others enough to cause change, a shift from unconsciously doing leadership to consciously being a leader and leaving your legacy now” ( Sandstrom & Smith, 2017,  p. 21). Legacy Leadership is a philosophy, a model, and a proven process for bringing out individual best, developing other leaders in an organization, establishing organizational leadership culture, and positively impacting the bottom line. Legacy Leaders serve others first, then themselves. Legacy Leaders are holders of vision and values. They are creators of trust and activators of  innovation and creativity. They are influencers of inspiration. They champion differences and build community. They calibrate organizational dynamics with responsibility and accountability in mind. These practices require core competencies and specific ways of being (be-attitudes) that result in  simple, sophisticated, elegant, and successful approaches to leadership. The philosophy and model are derived from concepts, principles, and practices of transformational and servant leadership, leader-member exchange theory, path-goal theory, and systems theory ( Sandstrom & Smith, 2008). One can easily see the legacy leadership model is built on foundations of reflective practice and attention to personal work related to clarification of one’s strengths, values, and contributions to a greater good.

Strengths Based Leadership for Nursing Science Exercise

Determine your strengths, contributions, and values to support the development of a Nursing Leadership Legacy. Consider the following steps and action plan:

• Complete the strengthsfinders survey  (Rath, T. & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths based leadership: Great leaders, teams and why people follow. New York, NY: Gallup Press.
• Complete the contribify profile  Rath, T. (2020). Life’s Great Question: Discover How You Contribute To The World
• Complete the Values Inventory of Strengths Assessment:   See how your top values dovetail and support your leadership strengths and contributions.
• Explore some of the other resources discussed in the presentation like the Barrett Values Assessment or Lance Secretan’s (2010)  Why Be DO exercise
• Reflect on the discoveries you make about your strengths, values, and virtues.
• Consider how this personal knowledge contributes to the development of a nursing career legacy map .
• Imagine that you are 70 years old looking back on your career. Consider writing a letter to the self. Write a letter to your younger self and explain the lessons you learned, the reputation you developed, and the legacy that you created during your working years based on the knowledge of your strengths, contributions, values, and virtues.

I would love to hear your feedback about this blog. If you are interested in using a coach to help you unpack your assessment results or creating a nursing legacy leadership map, request an appoint or consultation here.

Strength-Based Leadership for Nursing Science Presentation (August 2024) [You Tube Link]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-TU7jaIV_E

References and Resources

Allison-Napolitano, E., & Pesut, D. J. (2015). Bounce forward: The extraordinary resilience of nurse leadership. American Nurses Association.

Barrett Values Centre BVC (valuescentre.com)

Hinds, P. S., Britton, D. R., Coleman, L., Engh, E., Humbel, T. K., Keller, S., … & Walczak, D. (2015). Creating a career legacy map to help assure meaningful work in nursing. Nursing outlook, 63(2), 211-218.

Kouzes, J.M., & Posner, B.Z. (2007). The leadership challenge (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

Kouzes, James & Posner, Barry (2006). A Leader’s Legacy. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA
Legacy Leadership

Pesut, DJ (2023). Reimagining Leadership: A legacy Perspective, Chapter 14 In Horton-Deutsch, S., & Sherwood, G. (2023). Reflective Practice: Reimagining Ourselves, Reimagining Nursing. Sigma Theta Tau.

Pesut, DJ (2022). Wisdom Leadership: A Developmental Journey, Chapter 17 pages 443-461 in Wei, H., & Horton-Deutsch, S. (2022). Visionary Leadership In Healthcare. Sigma Theta Tau.

Pesut, D. J. (2004). Create the future through renewal. Reflections on nursing leadership/Sigma Theta Tau International, Honor Society of Nursing, 30(1), 24-25.

Pesut, D. (2001). Healing into the future: Recreating the profession of nursing through inner work. Pages 853-865. In N. Chaska (Ed.) The Nursing profession: Tomorrow and Beyond. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Rath, T. (2020). Life’s Great Question: Discover How You Contribute To The World. Tom Rath.

Rath, T., & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths based leadership. New York, NY: Gallup Press.

Sandstrom, J., & Smith, L. (2017). Legacy Leadership: The Leaders Guide to Lasting Greatness second edition. Dallas, TX: Coachworks Press.

Sandstrom, J., & Smith, L. (2008). Legacy Leadership. Dallas, TX: Coachworks Press.

Secretan, Lance (2010). The Spark, the Flame, and the Torch, the Secretan Center, Inc. Caledon, Ontario, Canada.

About Daniel Pesut

Daniel J. Pesut, PhD, RN, FAAN, is an Emeritus Professor and Emeritus Katherine R. and C. Walton Lillehei Chair in Nursing Leadership at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing. Correspondence about this article should be addressed to Daniel Pesut: dpesut@umn.edu or daniel@danieljpesut.com