Marcus Buckingham

The best way to find out whether you're on the right path? Stop looking at the path.

Strengths are not activities you're good at, they're activities that strengthen you. A strength is an activity that before you're doing it you look forward to doing it; while you're doing it, time goes by quickly and you can concentrate; after you've done it, it seems to fulfill a need of yours.

There has to be a way to redirect employee's driving ambition and to channel it more productively. There is. Create heroes in every role. Make every role, performed at excellence, a respected profession.

Most of my work has been in corporations, studying how you build an organization that helps people to identify and work to their strengths.

The true genius of a great manager is his or her ability to individualize. A great manager is one who understands how to trip each person's trigger.

Don't waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in.

Everyone can probably do at least one thing better than ten thousand other people.

Your strongest life is built through a continuous practice of designing moment by moment.

You will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses.

The Four Keys of Great Managers: When selecting someone, they select for talent ... not simply experience, intelligence or determination. When setting expectations, they define the right outcomes ... not the right steps. When motivating someone, they focus on strengths ... not on weaknesses. and When developing someone, they help him find the right fit ... not simply the next rung on the ladder.

Define excellence vividly, quantitatively. Paint a picture for your most talented employees of what excellence looks like. Keep everyone pushing and pushing toward the right-hand edge of the bell curve.

To get the best coaching outcomes, always have your 1-on-1's on your employee's turf not yours. In your office the truth hides.

Every time you make a rule you take away a choice, and choice, with all of its illuminating repercussions, is the fuel for learning.

Emphasize your strengths on your resume, in your cover letters and in your interviews. It may sound obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people simply list everything they've ever done. _x000D_ Convey your passion and link your strengths to measurable results. Employers and interviewers love concrete data.

"Freedom, individualism, authenticity and being yourself so long as you don't hurt another's physical person or property: Sustained success comes only when you take what's unique about you and figure out how to make it useful!"

Authenticity is your most precious commodity as a leader.

Many of us feel stress and get overwhelmed not because we're taking on too much, but because we're taking on too little of what really strengthens us.

Always work hard. Intensity clarifies. It creates not only momentum, but also the pressure you need to feel either friction, or fulfillment.

You grow most in your areas of greatest strength. You will improve the most, be the_x000D_ _x000D_ most creative, be the most inquisitive, and bounce back the fastest in those areas_x000D_ _x000D_ where you have already shown some natural advantage over everyone else your strengths. This doesn't mean you should ignore your weaknesses. It just means_x000D_ _x000D_ you'll grow most where you're already strong.