Finding Strength in Ourselves to Strengthen our Salons

Great leaders are passionate and confident about their work, and inspire those around them to feel the same. That’s why we’re committed to developing and growing leaders at Cole’s Salon and Spa—because we know true leadership and innovation happens from the inside out and has the ability to reach our guests in special ways.

This summer, Heather Ehresman from our corporate team attended a Bumble and bumble leadership workshop focused on leveraging one’s strengths and acquiring tools and best practices to successfully lead their teams. Check out her recap below!

If I asked you to list your strengths in detail as a friend, as a co-worker, as an employee—could you provide a list of five resounding characteristics, or would you stumble over what you could improve on and spend the next several minutes lamenting on what’s not working?

We often are conditioned to work on what needs improving; where we could get stronger, or what isn’t working in our lives rather than spend much time learning about, and practicing what we excel in. When was the last time you focused on what you did really well?

What if you could spend two full days learning more about your strengths, the areas where you are naturally talented? What if you could spend two full days examining what makes you great and how you can use those strengths to be a better co-worker, boss or friend?

This summer, I had an opportunity to attend a Bumble and bumble’s leadership workshop focused on StrengthsFinder. The main objective was to spend time not only celebrating my strengths, but dissecting them in a way to encourage growth in my relationships—both personally and professionally.

StrengthsFinder 2.0, written by Tom Rath, details 34 of the most common talents that we as humans can possess. The purpose of this book is to assess and help people discover their natural talents and strengths. The test was quite simple, and in less than 15 minutes I had an electronic summary of my five strengths—relator, maximizer, developer, belief and discipline. Reading through them quickly I agreed with the assessment, wrinkled my nose at a few of the quirks lurking within my strengths, and prepared for class.

Over the next two days we dove deep into each of my five top talents. As we practiced, role-played real life scenarios and studied ways to manage each of my strengths—I  realized how connected my strengths were to the success of my position at Cole’s Salon. I saw the reason why I sometimes got frustrated with my five year-old, and had a new appreciation for the strengths that my husband had (and I very much lacked!). I saw how as a coach, leader and teammate my strengths added to the relationships I developed or at times, if misunderstood, those same strengths took away from the relationship I was trying to build.

I learned to love my strength of discipline and how to “reel it back” in situations where it came across as perfectionistic and demanding. I realized my strength as developer not only connected my passion for people but my passion for creating education within our culture at Cole’s Salon.

Most of all, the workshop sparked my curiosity in others. What were their strengths? What natural abilities can I tap into as their teammate, their coach, or as a mom that can help people become more of who they are meant to be?

So the next time someone asks you where do you excel, what are you good at…take a moment to find your passion, to find what brings you joy, chances are that talent and that characteristic you love about yourself is one of your strengths.  

Heather Ehresman is on the corporate team at Cole’s Salon.