Your Intellection Talent: Exercising Your Mental Muscles

On this Theme Thursday Season 3 webcast, Jim Collison, Gallup's Director of Talent Sourcing, and Maika Leibbrandt, Senior Workplace Consultant, talk about Intellection with guest Cheryl Pace.

You like to think. You like mental activity. You like exercising the "muscles" of your brain, stretching them in multiple directions. This need for mental activity may be focused; for example, you may be trying to solve a problem or develop an idea or understand another person's feelings. The exact focus will depend on your other strengths. On the other hand, this mental activity may very well lack focus. The theme of Intellection does not dictate what you are thinking about; it simply describes that you like to think.

You are the kind of person who enjoys your time alone because it is your time for musing and reflection. You are introspective. In a sense, you are your own best companion, as you pose yourself questions and try out answers on yourself to see how they sound. This introspection may lead you to a slight sense of discontent as you compare what you are actually doing with all the thoughts and ideas that your mind conceives. Or this introspection may tend toward more pragmatic matters such as the events of the day or a conversation that you plan to have later. Wherever it leads you, this mental hum is one of the constants of your life.

If, as an individual with Intellection, you bring greater awareness to the ideas you spend time musing on, as a leader you provide deeper consideration and perspective to the challenges facing your team or organization. The core of this theme is really about processing, not necessarily producing. The value of this theme might come after Intellection has had time to be the star of the show. How are you thinking? Do you think alone? Do you think best in a group? How are you finding what you're musing about? Study how you do your best thinking. Think about your best avenue for sharing your awareness.

Intellection has a heightened sense of understanding. Typically someone with Intellection takes time to muse. Introduce this need for time, and allow yourself to have the benefit of that time. Ask for information. Demonstrate thoughtful consideration. Allow others to take a peek at what they get when they get you time to muse. You hate being unprepared, and your best preparation is to flex your thought muscle. Make sure you have ways to feed and explore theory. Another great muscle to flex is to make sure you have diverse opinions to listen to. This will make your musings all the more complex.

A leader with Intellection can build trust by communicating your process. How can you merge invitations to thought in what you communicate? Allow people in while your thoughts are still churning. You can show compassion by focusing those inner musings on other people. There are so many facets and a complex array of things to think about with every member of your team. A leader with Intellection can provide stability by studying past, current and future theories that apply to the challenges that your team is facing, and offering connections on what you see. You can provide hope by being able to muse and defuse. How do you invite people to consider alternatives that might help broaden their lens on where they are going? It's not always necessarily about having the right answer, but the beauty of exploration.

Cheryl Pace's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Relator, Consistency, Learner, Intellection and Responsibility.