This glossary includes the definitions of some key terminology we frequently use at Strengthscope. We aim to provide you with clarity on the language of strengths whenever you read our content or use any of our products.
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| British Psychological Society
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The British Psychological Society (BPS) is a charity that represents and promotes psychology and psychologists in the UK. It’s dedicated to promoting excellence in psychology and supporting its members since its founding in 1901.
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| British Psychological Society Registered-Test status
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Strengthscope® holds the British Psychological Society test-registration status, the gold standard in this industry. This means that the results of our reports are proven to be scientifically backed, robust and free of any bias regarding gender, age and ethnic origin. The British Psychological Society Registered-Test status indicates a psychometric test has met a high standard in areas like validity, reliability, and documentation, based on the European Federation of Psychologists Associations (EFPA) Review Model.
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| ‘Bubbling under’ strengths
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‘Bubbling under’ strengths are shown in the Strengthscope Strengths Wheel as the 3 highest blue bars. These are just below the Significant 7 Strengths but may still provide a good deal of energy.
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| Client Admin
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Client Admin is the platform used by accredited Strengthscope® practitioners. It’s where they can purchase additional reports, manage their teams, and access specific resources to support their journey.
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| Effective leadership habits
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The leadership habits are part of the Stretch Leadership™ model in the StrengthscopeLeader™ report. This model illustrates the relationship between your strengths, the leadership habits, and the outcomes you deliver. StrengthscopeLeader™ measures 16 leadership habits linked to effective leadership that are grouped into four categories: Sharing vision, Sparking engagement, Skillfully executing, Sustaining progress.
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| Emotional strengths
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Emotional strengths are one of the four strengths clusters in the Strengths Wheel, and they concern how you make sense of, express and manage emotions. The strengths that are part of this cluster are: Courage, Emotional control, Enthusiasm, Optimism, Resilience, Self-confidence.
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| Energy drainers
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Energy drainers are the shortest bars on the Strengths Wheel. They provide you with less energy and less enjoyment in your work if you have to use them over a certain period of time. They might be the competencies that are not necessarily your strengths.
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| Executional strengths
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Executional strengths are one of the four strengths clusters in the Strengths Wheel, and they concern what results you deliver, and how you deliver them. The strengths that are part of this cluster are: Decisiveness, Efficiency, Flexibility, Initiative, Results-focus, Self-improvement.
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| Growth mindset
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Having a growth mindset means believing that the development of skills, abilities, and intelligence can evolve and change through persistence and hard work.
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| Leader Habits Analysis
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Leader Habits Analysis is an in-depth Strengthscope analysis of the effective leadership habits and significant strengths of your leaders. With this analysis, we help you understand the key behaviours and competencies that impact the effectiveness of your leaders, benchmark them against our norm database, identify group development areas and training needs, and offer specific recommendations based on quantitative and qualitative analysis.
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| Peak Performing Team Pathway™ model |
The Peak Performing Team Pathway™ model measures a team’s productive habits across five key areas at each stage of the team development lifecycle. These five areas, also known as the 5A Framework, are: 1. Aspirations: A clear set of aspirations which can provide clarity of goals, roles and responsibilities for the team 2. Awareness of where the team’s strengths and performance risks lie to build trust 3. Action: Taking action to draw on each other’s strengths and ideas to reach clear decisions and ensure a high degree of accountability 4. Agility to deal positively with change and develop ‘change readiness’ 5. Achievements: Celebrating the team’s achievements and taking action to review and strengthen performance, ensuring continuous stretch and improvement. |
| Performance risks
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Performance risks are the factors that could prevent you from achieving peak performance. There are three main types of performance risks: 1. Energy drainers (the shortest bars in your Strengths Wheel, which give you less energy and enjoyment in your work) 2. Strengths in overdrive (when strengths are overused or used in the wrong way, at the wrong time) 3. Interference (also known as a blocker, this could be internal to the person. For example a self-limiting belief or attitude, or external, for example a genuine constraint in the role or organisation). |
| Positive Psychology
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Positive psychology aims to help people develop their potential and become happier and more successful at work. It emphasises what is right with people rather than what is wrong with them, and is backed by strong evidence that focusing on strengths and other positive qualities helps us live better, more successful lives, at work and outside of work.
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| Productive team habits
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The most effective teams develop and practice productive team habits in five areas to transform strengths into effective teamwork and business results at each stage of their development. These habits are: 1. Clarity (Have clarity of goals, roles and responsibilities for the team) 2. Trust (Gain an awareness of where the team’s strengths and performance risks lie to build trust) 3. Accountability (Take action to draw on each other’s strengths and ideas to reach clear decisions and ensure a high level of accountability), 4. Change readiness (Develop agility to deal positively with change), 5. Stretch (Celebrate the team’s achievements and take action to review and strengthen performance, ensuring continuous stretch and improvement). |
| Raters
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The StrengthscopeLeader™ and Strengthscope360™ reports contain a section where the individual completing the report requests feedback on their performance from selected individuals in their team or organisation. These individuals are called ‘raters’.
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| Relational strengths
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Relational strengths are one of the four strengths clusters in the Strengths Wheel, and they concern establishing and maintaining productive relations with others. The strengths that are part of this cluster are: Collaboration, Compassion, Developing others, Empathy, Leading, Persuasiveness, Relationship building.
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| Respondent
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We define a ‘respondent’ as the individual completing the Strengthscope® assessment.
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| Sharing Vision
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Sharing vision is one of the four leadership habits that are part of the Stretch Leadership™ model in the StrengthscopeLeader™ report. This habit is defined as setting a clear, shared vision of success for the organisation, and is broken down into individual items: 1. Inspiring others with a simple, energising and realistic vision of what success could look like, 2. Ensuring a strong customer/service-based strategy that builds trust and loyalty, 3. Setting strategic goals based on a good understanding of the organisation’s changing environment, 4. Keeping people and stakeholders focused on the bigger picture and longer-term priorities. |
| Significant 7 Strengths
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The Significant 7 strengths refer to the seven highest-rated strengths within an individual’s Strengthscope® profile. These will appear as purple bars in the Strengths Wheel and are the most energising qualities for an individual. By focusing on developing these strengths, you will be able to achieve your best results and career success.
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| Skillfully Executing
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Skillfully executing is one of the four leadership habits that are part of the Stretch Leadership™ model in the StrengthscopeLeader™ report. This habit is defined as setting stretching performance expectations, reviewing progress, and holding people to account to ensure delivery of planned outcomes. It’s broken down into individual items: 1. Regularly reporting results and reviewing progress to ensure people remain on target, 2. Setting clear, stretching and achievable performance expectations, 3. Ensuring people are held accountable to these, 4. Sharing regular feedback from customers/stakeholders to promote a culture of excellence, 5. Taking decisive action to deal with performance shortfalls and unproductive behaviour. |
| Sparking Engagement
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Sparking engagement is one of the four leadership habits that are part of the Stretch Leadership™ model in the StrengthscopeLeader™ report. This habit is defined as empowering, inspiring and developing people. It’s broken down into individual items: 1. Inspiring people to give their best by providing them with challenging opportunities that develop their strengths and skills, 2. Encouraging people to take responsibility for their work and decide how to best achieve their objectives, 3. Promoting an open and respectful work environment where people feel that they can freely share their views and ideas, 4. Promoting regular and open feedback to accelerate learning and improvement. |
| Strengths
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We define strengths as underlying qualities that energise us and we are great at (or have the potential to be great at). Strengths differ from skills, as a skill is an ability developed through knowledge, practice, and training that enables one to perform tasks effectively. Strengths also differ from personality traits, as a personality trait is a stable characteristic that influences how we think and feel across situations. Traits describe who we are at a fundamental level, whereas strengths describe what energises us and helps us perform at our best.
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| Strengths in overdrive
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A strength in overdrive is when certain strengths (or a combination of strengths), are over-used or used in the wrong situation or with the wrong person, resulting in unintended negative outcomes. This is also considered a performance risk, as it’s one of the factors that could hinder you from achieving peak performance.
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| Strengths spotting
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Strengths spotting means identifying energising strengths in another individual, this could be through preference clues or through working with someone.
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| Strengths Wheel
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The Strengths Wheel is included in your Strengthscope® report. It shows all of the 24 strengths with your scores rated on a standardised scale from 1-10. It includes your top 7 strengths, your bubbling unders, and energy drainers. It also shows you the percentages of how your strengths are split across the four strengths clusters: Emotional, Relational, Thinking, Execution.
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| Strengths-based development
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A strengths-based development approach focuses on identifying and leveraging an individual’s inherent strengths rather than concentrating on their deficits. This method encourages people to use what naturally energises them to achieve goals, improve performance, and build confidence. By aligning tasks and roles with strengths, individuals are more engaged, motivated, and likely to experience sustainable growth and success.
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| Strengthscope®
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The Strengthscope® report is the heart of all strengths knowledge and the foundation of all the Strengthscope assessments and development programs. Strengthscope® measures what gives people energy. Designed to help people identify what makes them truly unique, enabling honest and authentic conversations. It empowers them to develop and stretch their strengths, as well as productively overcome blockers to their performance.
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| Strengthscope® accreditation
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The Strengthscope® accreditation is the core training to get started with Strengthscope®. Participants will learn the fundamentals of the Strengthscope® and Strengthscope360™ reports, how to give effective coaching using the reports, and how to design their own strengths workshops.
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| Strengthscope® debrief
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A Strengthscope® debrief is a facilitated session that follows the completion of a Strengthscope® assessment. During the debrief, individuals explore how they are currently using their strengths, identify opportunities for further development, and consider how to manage any potential performance risks.
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| Strengthscope® practitioner
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A Strengthscope® practitioner is an individual who has completed the Strengthscope® accreditation and is certified to use the Strengthscope® tools. There are two ways to join a Strengthscope® accreditation and become a practitioner: 1. Through a public accreditation; which runs over 2 days and is held virtually, 2. Or through an in-house accreditation; where a Strengthscope® trainer delivers the accreditation at your company, for teams of 3-12 people. |
| Strengthscope360™
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Strengthscope360™ is an add-on product to the original Strengthscope® report. It collects 360-degree feedback on how an individual’s significant strengths show up at work. It’s self-managed and easily repeatable, so people can measure and benchmark performance improvements over time. The Individual (the respondent) requesting feedback can choose who they want to request feedback from (the raters).
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| StrengthscopeInterview™
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StrengthscopeInterview™ is a strengths assessment tool that helps candidates understand their unique strengths and showcase their authentic selves during the recruitment and interview stage. The tool is not recommended for sifting candidates out during a selection process.
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| StrengthscopeLeader™
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StrengthscopeLeader™ is a leadership diagnostic tool that improves leaders’ self-awareness through stakeholder feedback. It is an assessment that measures effective leadership habits, identifies areas of development and pulses progress over time.
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| StrengthscopeMaster™
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StrengthscopeMaster™ is a certification provided to an individual when they have completed all three Strengthscope accreditations (Strengthscope®, StrengthscopeTeam™, and StrengthscopeLeader™). After achieving this certification, they become a StrengthscopeMaster™ practitioner.
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| StrengthscopePlus™
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StrengthscopePlus™ is a self-driven, online Strengthscope development journey that can be easily embedded into your organisation at all levels, in a cost-effective, scalable way, and as part of a long-term, digital solution to your people’s development. There are four key modules that include self-driven strengths development tools for every stage of the employee lifecycle.
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| StrengthscopeTeam™
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StrengthscopeTeam™ is a team diagnostic tool that identifies the collective strengths and performance risks of any team or project group. It assesses and describes the team’s current behaviour and where this can be enhanced to help build a strong and sustainable team culture. It measures the productive habits of a team, identifies areas of development, and pulses progress over time.
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| StrengthsPortal®
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StrengthsPortal® is our online platform accessible to all who have completed a Strengthscope assessment. You can use this platform as your learning hub to access your reports and have dedicated development tracks on goal setting, managing your energy, preparing for performance conversations, and more.
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| Sustaining Progress
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Sustaining progress is one of the four leadership habits that are part of the Stretch Leadership™ model in the StrengthscopeLeader™ report. This habit is defined as recognising achievement and encouraging continuous improvement and experimentation. It’s broken down into individual items: 1. Creating a safe environment that encourages considered risk-taking and continuous improvement, 2. Recognising outstanding effort and celebrating achievements in a fair and appropriate way, 3. Encouraging people to be open to change and develop their capabilities to meet future requirements, 4. Challenging people to think and act in innovative ways. |
| Team development stages
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The team development stages are the stages across a team development lifecycle, which provide the tools and techniques to tap into team habit areas and behaviours. These areas are part of our Peak Performing Team Pathway™: 1. Aspirations: A clear set of aspirations which can provide clarity of goals, roles and responsibilities for the team. 2. Awareness of where the team’s strengths and performance risks lie to build trust. 3. Action: Taking action to draw on each other’s strengths and ideas to reach clear decisions and ensure a high degree of accountability. 4. Agility to deal positively with change and develop ‘change readiness’. 5. Achievements: Celebrating the team’s achievements and taking action to review and strengthen performance, ensuring continuous stretch and improvement. |
| Team Habits Analysis
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Team Habits Analysis is an in-depth Strengthscope analysis of the effective team habits and significant strengths of your teams. With this analysis, we help you understand the key behaviours and competencies that impact the effectiveness of your teams, benchmark them against our norm database, identify group development areas and training needs and get specific recommendations based on quantitative and qualitative analysis.
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| Team Strengths Wheel
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The team strengths wheel is a team’s strengths profile across Strengthscope’s four clusters: Emotional, Relational, Thinking and Execution. The bars represent how many team members report each strength as one of their ‘Significant 7’.
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| Team’s clear strengths
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A team’s clear strengths are the purple bars on a team Strengths Wheel and indicates that more than 40% of team members share a Significant 7 Strength.
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| The 5A Framework
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The 5A framework (Aspirations, Awareness, Action, Agility, Achievement) provides a structured yet adaptable approach to coaching, designed to help individuals and teams unlock their full potential. Whether used in a single impactful conversation or woven into a series of coaching sessions, it offers a clear, step-by-step pathway for growth and development. By focusing on aspirations, awareness, action, agility, and achievement, this framework ensures that coaching is engaging, effective, and sustainable, enabling coachees to strengthen their performance, build resilience, and reach their goals with confidence. The 5A’s are: 1. Aspirations: A clear set of aspirations which can provide clarity of goals, roles and responsibilities for the team. 2. Awareness of where the team’s strengths and performance risks lie to build trust. 3. Action: Taking action to draw on each other’s strengths and ideas to reach clear decisions and ensure a high degree of accountability. 4. Agility to deal positively with change and develop ‘change readiness’. 5. Achievements: Celebrating the team’s achievements and taking action to review and strengthen performance, ensuring continuous stretch and improvement. |
| Thinking strengths
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Thinking strengths are one of the four strengths clusters in the Strengths Wheel and they concern how you go about gathering and using information to make decisions. The strengths that are part of this cluster are: Common sense, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Detail orientation, Strategic mindedness.
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| Zone of peak performance
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The zone of peak performance is the point where areas of competence (skills, knowledge, and abilities) overlap with strengths (areas that energise us), and with organisational goals. It is in this area that we are most likely to be able to achieve peak performance. Strengths provide natural energy and motivation, skills offer the capability to execute effectively, and goals set a clear direction for achievement. When coaching focuses on optimising this overlap, individuals experience greater engagement, resilience, and fulfilment, leading to consistent high performance without burnout.
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