Are You Under Using Your Strengths? with Robert McGrath

Robert McGrath is Professor of Psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University.  He is also a Senior Scientist at the VIA Institute on Character, program evaluator for Thriving Learning Community, a character development program implemented in fifty middle schools around the United States, and Director of Integrated Care for the Underserved of Northeast New Jersey.   In this conversation, you will hear Robert talk about the exciting work he is doing with various assessments at the VIA Institute.  He shares the latest tools and insights to assess and understand character strengths and explains how these can help you to bring out the best in yourself and others at work.   Connect with Robert McGrath: Website:  http://fdu-psych.com/mcgrath You’ll Learn: [01:53] -Bob explains how you can use your character strengths at work. [04:53] - Bob shares how understand the rankings of their character strengths in the VIA survey and what this means practically for developing our strengths. [9:01] - Bob talks about the recent research on the overuse and underuse of our strengths and how this impacts our ability to flourish at work. [10:44] - Bob shares how character strengths are being used to assist in clinical diagnosis. [13:20] - Bob talks about the new Global Assessment of Character Strengths and how this can help people to identify the strengths they find essential to their identity. [18:00] - Bob shares the new Signature Strengths Survey and talks about how this can be used to gather 360 degree feedback. [19:40] - Bob has been working on re-examining the character strengths virtue groupings and why new studies suggest there are three, rather than six virtues. [24:16] - The Lightning Round with Robert McGrath Your Resources: Your Strengths Blueprint: How to be Engaged, Energized, and Happy at Work - Michelle McQuaid and Erin Law The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity - Esther Perel ViaCharacter.com Free Global Strengths Challenge Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for joining me again this week.  If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of this post.   Please leave an honest review for the Making Positive Psychology Work Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them.  And don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. It’s free! You can also listen to all the episodes of Making Positive Psychology Work streamed directly to your smartphone or iPad through stitcher. No need for downloading or syncing. Until next time, take care!