VIA Strengths Profile
VIA ranks 24 character strengths from a free survey, so the conversation can start from what someone already does well instead of the usual list of gaps.
Arrows carry you from a ranked list of strengths through to specific actions you will actually take.
Reach for this when…
- A development plan is entirely a list of weaknesses to fix.
- Someone can't name what they're actually good at, only what they're bad at.
- A role isn't working and you suspect it's misaligned with what energises this person, not their competence.
How to run it
- Complete the VIA survey (free, at viacharacter.org).
- Get the ranked profile of all 24 strengths.
- Focus on the top five signature strengths and how they show up at work now.
- Look at the bottom strengths honestly: genuine gap or just less developed?
- Build a daily strengths-spotting habit: where did each signature strength show up today?
- Shape a role or project plan around deploying the top strengths, not managing around the bottom ones.
A worked example
Situation. Martina Fernández's programme coordinator at Fundación Andina in Cordoba, Argentina, was being managed entirely around a single complaint: she missed deadlines.
Applied. Her VIA profile put fairness, curiosity, and love of learning in the top five, and organisation nowhere near it. Martina stopped coaching her toward tidier processes and instead built her a role auditing programme outcomes for equity, work that used her top strengths directly.
Result. The deadline problem didn't vanish, but it stopped being the whole conversation. Fundación Andina's field reports, her actual output, became noticeably sharper within two quarters.
The catch
The strengths at the bottom of someone's list aren't weaknesses, and treating them that way misreads the model; everyone has all 24, just in different order. It also produces a long, positive-feeling report that's easy to file away without changing anything concrete. And self-report means the profile reflects self-image as much as behaviour.
A strengths profile that never gets used to redesign a single task or conversation was a personality quiz, not a coaching tool.
Origin: Christopher Peterson & Martin Seligman