Commit to learning and growing, and pass it on

Yvonne Nyakana believes that personal development is the most important priority. An African, she was born in Uganda and grew up in Ethiopia during very turbulent times in both countries.

Growing up, Yvonne’s mother was a strong role model, even though she didn’t think so as a child because it seemed that all the people in powerful positions were male and working outside of the home. Both her parents loved reading and music, and they exposed their children to a wide range of cultures and societies worldwide. She developed a thirst for knowledge and curiosity about people from other countries, which peaked a desire to venture out into the world, and was instrumental in her going to college in the US when she was 18. 

Moving countries, as anyone who has done it will attest, means an enormous learning experience. The experience cemented the passion for personal development she had discovered as a child. It continued in her corporate career. A very insightful leader introduced her to the ‘StrengthsFinder’ profiling tool (now called Clifton Strengths), and the idea that we often invest too much time and energy on our weaknesses.

No surprise, then, that she also has a ‘learner’ strength. That was another lightbulb moment for her because she had only focussed on reading and learning things for work. Once she understood it as a strength, she stayed true to the childhood passion her mother had ignited in her for reading and continuous learning.

Yvonne is in good company. The evidence suggests that strengths-based development pays dividends. In 2016 Gallup conducted the largest global research project to date (‘ROI for Strengths-Based Development’ 2016) to study workgroups using strengths-based interventions and examine the effects those interventions had on workgroup performance. Overall, 90 per cent of the workgroups studied had performance increases because of using strengths-based interventions.

These leadership insights from Yvonne Nyakana are outlined in more detail in the new book, which Dean Phelan and I co-authored – The Gentle Art of Leadership.

The perspectives we gathered from our interviews with 50+ leaders like Yvonne from around the globe and the original research we drew on, form the basis of the book.

🙋‍♀️ Who or what has inspired your love of learning? 🙋

PS: Ready to understand and use your strength? Let’s talk about how the upcoming Personality and Behaving Transactionally Program could help.

Best regards, Brian