WITH
I am interdependent with my peers

Paul Lowther (Mr) Gotham Primary School and Director of MyOwnTutor

Nottingham, United Kingdom

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Maximiser . Positivity . Developer . Includer . Arranger

EDUCATOR TESTIMONY

Before I became aware of my natural talents and intrinsic Strengths, I was allowing toxicity to overwhelm my natural motivation and ambition in my role as a senior leader within a school. I had no idea of the negative impact, not only myself but also others, in what we were trying to achieve together. I found it became difficult for me to be motivated. My natural positivity was affected by toxicity and I felt unable to impact the priorities which were important within the place in which I worked. This was causing undo stress in my role as a head teacher and was impacting my mental wellbeing and was having a knock-on effect on my personal life.

I sought assistance through a Strengths Coach at WITH and through talking with Sam, I could see that I needed to become more interdependent in my interaction with others, something I had never really thought about before, recognising that I cannot do everything on my own, and not to allow myself within the various environments and situations to become too ‘independent’ in my role and thinking, but rather to recognise the value we all bring as a team, when each of us can play to our natural talents and Strengths. The value of this has been in allowing me to become consciously aware of interacting through interdependence and with this, to enhance my role as a Maximiser.  Being confident in who I naturally am, and honest about who I am not, has enabled me to think about opening up to others and also help them recognise that I respond well to validation and praise and this is, in actual fact, part of the ‘needs’ of my particular Strengths, so I actually function better and am energised, when people endorse my efforts.

I chatted with Sam about WITH helping us to create a Strength-based School at my place of work, but funding is an issue as our school is a small so we need to be careful how we manage our budget. However, I see how this programme can be of huge benefit to the staff and children that I work with, as it has already really benefited me and enabled me to see from a totally different perspective and how important it is to have an ongoing awareness of Strengths.

I personally found the Strengths awareness very useful and informative and would like to see the impact of this on other people, even beyond the school where I currently work. My business - ‘MyOwnTutor’ is being influenced as a result of restoring my positive thinking and has created a determination as a result.

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