Yourdictionary.com defines “strong personality” as the qualities of self-confidence and assertiveness in a person. It is the personality of independence. People with a strong personality are indeed strong as the name implies, because they are able to resist oppositions to a very great extent. You will see some of their characteristics in this post.
Who is a strong personality?
Very few things in nature are described as being strong. By strong, we may refer to a sharp sour taste as in lime or alcohol, or the taste of some unripe fruits. It could also mean something that is hard and is able to break other things without itself breaking.
Thus, we find that strong is a qualifier for anything or anybody that possesses more strength or have a more powerful quality different from those of the general population.
Personality means the general outlook, demeanour, disposition, of any individual that makes them different from other people. Your personality is a unique identity that can be used to describe you, without mentioning your name or some other physical qualities.
Put together, a strong personality is one who is resistant to outside forces, different, outspoken, not afraid to ruffle feathers, not overly concerned with pleasing everyone, not necessarily loud, but definitely not quiet, and who is assertive to what one believes to be right or true irrespective of the magnitude of the opposing forces.
Just before I talk about the attributes of a strong personality, it is important I differentiate between a strong personality and a headstrong individual. While headstrong individuals are arrogant and uncoachable, people with strong personalities are self-driven, and will hardly wait around for any validation. A strong personality may push one to act on one’s own accord. This makes individuals with this personality be extremely independent. However, unlike headstrong individuals, strong personalities are not arrogant or difficult to train or approach.
People with a strong personalities take charge of situations and, in turn, become an inspiration to many. They concentrate better, which means they exhibit razor-sharp focus. Fortunately, some of these great traits can be learned. While most individuals think that someone is born with a certain personality, it is also true that a lot of the good traits many people desire can be learnt.
Attributes/Characteristics of a Strong Personality
The driving force behind people with a strong personality is their inner desire to firmly resists external factors that will discourage them from pursuing their goals in life. They seek to perform their best at work, find solutions to the challenges that may hinder their work. There are a bunch of common attributes of strong personalities, but I will list them below.
Have you seen someone with a strong personality? Put him in the midst of people with different ideas, beliefs, and behaviours. He will not change as much as some other persons would.
In this post, I will also tell you some benefits of this strong personality and why you should seek to develop a strong personality yourself. So what are some attributes of a strong personality?
- Self-confidence and self-esteem
- Positivity and optimism
- Empathy and compassion towards others
- Self-withdrawal if necessary
- They are assertive
- They have a dry sense of humour
- They can read and understand people
- They can captivate and attract others
- They have excellent body control abilities
- They are hardworking
- They are approachable
- They may interject people on their ignorance
- They are humble
- They are solution-oriented and fast decision-makers
- They are free with people but they select inner-circle friends carefully
- They do not seek attention
- They make good team-leaders
- They see problems as opportunities
- They are not fans of excuses
- They live their life without fear
Self-confidence and Self-esteem
People with strong personalities are confident of themselves, and they do not let anything get in the way of their self-esteem. Several factors can affect people’s self-esteem, including social status, money, beauty, perception of body parts, etc. People with a strong personality understand who they are, they know the flaws that they may possess. Maybe their body isn’t shaped so greatly as some other people, or they are not as beautiful or handsome, but they realise that what is more important is that they have something to offer.
They learn to understand who they are on the inside and deliberately choose to believe in themselves. So that no matter what other people say about them or about a situation, they remain determined.
Self-sufficiency is the other aspect of self-confidence, in which case they have a good knowledge of their abilities, even while looking for more ways to improve themselves and better achieve their goals. People with a strong personality believes that there is always a way out of every situation they find themselves in. Their confidence stems from the fact that they will always come up with coping mechanisms, and they realise that seeking dependence on other people only makes them lose their confidence and intimidated.
Positivity and Optimism
I can’t say that everyone with a strong personality is logical, but logical people with a strong personality engage their power of rationalization or thinking, observation and critical reasoning, to analyse situations, and sift out the positivity that may have been hidden.
Circumstances are not always rosy, after all, life is not a bed of roses without thorns. But your ability to evade your mind from these circumstances and focus on your goals is what makes you succeed.
Empathy and Compassion Towards Others
Strong personality individuals have been generally observed to be empathic and compassionate. This could be due to the fact they, they are in tune with the hate in the world. By hate, I mean the antagonisms and discouragement we face in our daily lives. Because strong personality individuals are very sensitive to discouragement, they sense even the smallest trace of it when they encounter it. Their antenna or radar easily catches it when you approach them with words of discouragement.
They know very well what it feels like to be discouraged or depressed about life, so they offer themselves to be in the shoes of other people and treat them with compassion. Hence, they have empathy and compassion.
Self-withdrawal if Necessary
People with strong personalities care about their goals and they seek to achieve them. They do not like to waste time with people who would inhibit them from attaining their goals. This category of people who are counter-productive to them includes those who have a pessimistic view of life and events, those who give up too easily, those who accept excuses for everything, those who are shallow thinking, etc. Strong personalities withdraw from people with these traits above.
Also, strong personalities do not like to hang out with people who discuss subjects that are irrelevant to their goals. They consider idle talks as time-wasting and serious distractions. Topics that revolve around productivity and excellence particularly arouse their interests, and they love to be with people who arouse their interests this way.
Self-withdrawal is a common characteristic of strong personalities because of the fact that many people do not make their criteria to be accepted into their conversation circle. Because of their interests in small details, they may take small irrelevant details in people’s words seriously. This may confuse the speaker or make them uncomfortable around them.
They are Assertive
Have you ever seen someone who believes what they know so much that nothing can ever dissuade them from it? Chances are you just saw a strong personality. But these chances are not 100%, chances are never 100%. Like I already mentioned in this post, headstrong people also possess this ability of assertiveness but it is quite different in strong personality individuals.
They have strong “yesses” and “noes” and would never let anyone cajole them into doing what they do not truly believe in. They will say no when the need be and they would mean it. This contrasts that of headstrong individuals who would never be open to new reasons, or arrogant people who would never listen to anyone even when they know that their actions could have grave consequences.
When it comes to meeting people’s requirements for success or victory, they do not seek people’s validations. They accept that they cannot satisfy people at all times, that they may not be able to help them at all times and this does not lower their self-esteem.
They Have a Dry Sense of Humour
Individuals with tenacious personalities are some of the most fun people you could possibly ever meet. They can make jokes even when you are not suspecting, in the midst of serious situations. Maybe they do not consider the situations a big threat as you do, but this may often make you go angry at their jokes.
That is their unique way of keeping a balance between their serious and humourous nature but you need to really understand them or be witty enough for you to understand when they are cracking jokes, at which point, you realise how humourous they really are.
They are Great Listeners
Strong personalities do a great job of listening more than they speak. They try to gather information from what you are telling them. This is because they do not want to misunderstand like most people misunderstand them.
Even though they speak less, when they finally do, people tend to listen to what they say to obey it. This makes them very good leaders in places where they are. Some people may feel intimidated by them and would try to bring them down, but they would always have their way around the situation as long they do not give up their self-confidence.
They can Read and Understand Other People
Their listening abilities also make them very powerful social magicians. They study people’s actions and match them up with their reactions. They do not judge merely by actions alone. They try to understand the whole situation and how the persons in question feel.
Another reason why they listen and try to understand people is that they continually try to search for the very few people who think like them, as though they seek true friends who understand them.
Individuals with strong personalities have extremely good listening skills, which makes it easy for them to understand those they are dealing with. I already said that, right? But even more, they match up your gestures, emotions and mood to better understand the message you are trying to pass across. By paying attention to your body language, they can read anyone. This makes them one of the most powerful personalities ever.
They Can Captivate and Attract Others
Making new friends can sometimes be a daunting task. However, this is not the case for individuals with strong personalities. They often know how to initiate a friendship, how to captivate others. They use compliments to make you feel comfortable around them, for instance, they could complement your singing skills and suggest that you develop the music star in you. This motivates many people around them.
People who are overly sensitive to compliments may think that they are only deceitfully complimenting them to gain some favour, even when they mean what they say and do. Another group of people that would hate them are those who are simply too lazy to make a move no matter how much you motivate them. But still, they would not impost things on you. They would simply try to whet your appetite for the task because they too live their life based on good reason and not force or favour.
Because of the positive energy around them and the motivation they bring, people who are good-willed naturally get attracted to them. People who see that are domineering are repelled from them, but that wouldn’t stop them from being who they are.
They Have Excellent Body Control Abilities
Self-control and endurance are some of the best traits of strong personalities. They train themselves to put circumstances under their control. This finds application in very embarrassing situations or stage mistakes, in the way they quickly find a way to compose themselves and diffuse the shame.
Their unique ability to find solutions very quickly through critical thinking also helps them find a way to face disgraceful and embarrassing situations without letting them dampen their self-confidence. This does not mean that they do not experience stage freights or panic attacks, but they quickly recover from them. This translates to them having excellent body or self-control abilities. If given the opportunity, they can use this ability to control an agitated crowd, another leadership trait.
They are Hardworking
The name “strong personality” does not only confer on them the ability to ability to resist discouragements and negative influences, it also has a meaning of strength to it. They are very focused and determined in everything they put their mind to. They are result-oriented and they have their goals set, only that this time, they will not allow anything to come between them and their goals.
They are hard workers and great achievers. They may spend lesser time getting things done because they focus on results, but they work hard nonetheless. With very minimal distractions from people and negative ideas, they are better focused on the job at hand.
They Look Unapproachable
Due to their nature of serious-mindedness, a lot of people confuse this to being harsh and unapproachable. This may be one unpleasant trait about them. However, in reality, they are very approachable and friendly, and they indeed like good company even though they may not go out of their way to seek such relationships.
They May Interject People on Their Ignorance
Strong personality people never let ignorant or discouraging remarks get to them. They may interrupt you when they think you are talking in ignorance in a way that will affect their thoughts negatively, or of someone close to them. They may not do this in a harsh way, but they sure would stand for what they think is right.
When they are close to you and they think you are acting ignorantly or you are probably doing something wrong, they would quickly interject you so as to correct you or show you a better way of doing things. This stems from their natural behaviour of always trying to get things right.
They are Humble
Strong people, I mean people with a strong personality are usually quick to accept their wrongs when you point them to it. They reflect on corrections made to them so that they will not repeat the mistakes.
However, they may indirectly antagonize you if you habitually try to drop their ego with your supposedly aimless corrections. They always hate the idea of someone trying to abuse their openness to make corrections.
They are Solution-oriented and Fast Decision Makers
In addition to that, strong people believe that there is a solution to every problem. They are self-aware and self-confident about their abilities. Even though they may not be the strongest in terms of might and physical abilities, their strong mindset sets them apart. They always believe in themselves, that is the strong mindset that makes them exceptional.
They Are Free With Every but They Select Inner-circle Friends Carefully
Strong people, again I am referring to people with a strong personality, are often very wary of the kind of people they give top-level privileges to in their life. They are free with almost everyone, including a total stranger, but when it comes to more intimacy, they do not want to associate with just anybody. you should know why by now. They do not like a company that takes away from them their strength, no discouragements welcome.
If you are lucky enough to be accepted as a friend, you should rest assured that the friendship with last really long, all things being equal. And once you earn the trust of a strong person, they will treat your concerns as though they were theirs.
They Do Not Seek Attention
Some other personalities would seek validation from others in the things that they do. Strong people do not. If you find that you often do not need people’s comments to prove that you are great, you may have developed a strong personality already.
Strong personality individuals do not crave other people’s attention. They like doing things they love rather than let others push them into it. They can be self-sufficient, self-driven and do not struggle so hard to earn peoples admiration.
Just like in the point of solution-oriented and self-confidence above, strong people (people with a strong personality) may not be the best but they believe in themselves and their capabilities
They Make Good Team-leaders
All things put together, people with strong personalities make very great leaders. With their solution-oriented thought process, and self-determination and self-confidence, they make very good leaders.
However, some of them may not be willing to carry up leadership positions. Others may not enjoy the privilege of leading the group due to certain reasons, maybe because some members of the group have some misconceptions about them. You will see some common misconceptions about people with strong personalities in the next section.
They See Problems As Opportunities
Their spirit of optimism makes them never give up trying even in the midst of problems. As much as they try to resist any form of discouragements from people, so also they avoid any circumstances from intimidating them. How do they do this?
They see problems as opportunities, somewhat like hurdles that need to be overcome for them to progress to the next level. And this is a very great mindset because that’s exactly what problems are in reality. They are known to face problems head-on when they encounter them.
Usually, strong people are not obsessed with comfort and security. They are willing to sacrifice extreme comfort in order to realise their goals. Due to their positive mindset, these people hatch plans whenever trouble strikes rather than sitting around lamenting. They find the means to fix current issues and prevent recurrent ones in the future.
They Are Not Fans of Excuses
Strong people and excuses are a mile apart and they repel each other. If you are a strong person, you prefer to owning up to responsibility than to excuse yourself over your shortcomings. This way, you work towards improving yourself and doing better next time.
They often frown at people who look for excuses rather than accept their shortcomings and work on ways to improve. When it comes to duty and responsibility, they are as hard on themselves as they could be on anyone else. Is this resonating with your personality?
They Live Their Life Without Fear
Fear is not just an unreal feeling but it has the capability to sap out your energy to overcome. Strong people do not live their life with fear. They let loose and go for their desires and dreams despite what might be happening around them. There may be limitations, negative energies around them but they always look beyond them and have a strong conviction that someday all these will give way to a brighter future.
This ability to look beyond the limitations is what set them apart from the rest of the crowd. They face life with the mindset that they can overcome no matter the things going wrong around them. And expectedly, they really make a change in the world.
We have dealt with 20 great personalities of strong people. However, there are some challenges that experience because of their strong personality. Let’s look at a few in the following section.
Problems With the Strong Personality and Solutions
This section is about some of the problems or misconceptions as you would prefer to call it, that people with a strong personality may experience. They are often part of the package, let’s say that bad part of the good story. However, when strong personalities find a way to cushion these challenges or modify the ones they have some control over, they turn out to be better and even stronger. Here is the list of the problems;
- Lacking sway in conversations
- Assumed to be seeking dominance
- Appear manipulative
- Perceived over-competitiveness
- Bad risk-taking
- Priding in ignorance
- Jokes seem offensive
Lacking Sway In Conversations
Your ability to confidently express yourself and your extreme opinions are often considered as rude and inconsiderate, especially by people who who do not understand you. This may make you feel withdrawn and trying not to speak too much and thus, affects your own side of the conversation.
The easiest way to deal with this is to understand your audience or conversation partner and minimize the words you would speak. This easiest way is however not the best way at all times. Sometimes, you may need to say what you intend anyways, irrespective of who you think may or may not approve it.
Assumed To Be Seeking Dominance
In the world of the strong personalities, assumptions are one of the strongest weapons used against them. Your strong nature can easily be mistaken for an attempt to dominate others.
You are likely to feel more natural when you control the conversation, but this may not always sit well with those around you. You need to be careful to stop your involvement in leading and avoid dominating as this could foster resentment and bitterness from those around you.
They May Appear Manipulative
Strong personalities believe in the possibilities but not everyone does so too. Sometimes people with strong personalities tend to stick with their ‘can do’ behaviours and would not accommodate the inconsistencies of others around them. This may portray them as manipulative even though their intention is to spur them into being more productive to themselves.
The solution to this is simple. Don’t overpush people into doing what they do not want to do. Strong people have a very strong power of persusasion but at this point, you should know when to stop trying to convince to avoid tilting to the side of perceived manipulation.
Perceived Over-competitiveness
Strong people work hard and stay focused. They have a knack for doing things right and achieving their goals. These traits may be perceived as over-competition even when they are not.
Not as though competition is a bad thing but people are often scared of competition with strong personalities because they fear that they are too strong to fail or give up.
Depending on whom they are dealing with, you should be careful enough to draw the line when competing with others. The fact that you are an achiever and perfectionist may push people the wrong way and could bring out the darker side of competition.
At best, learn to draw the line when the assumptions of your over-competitiveness is becoming great. Competition in itself is not a bad thing. And this particular challenge may affect how much of competition you engage in, but life is not always about competition, you know? And also, you have other aspects of life to develop and leave your competitors stuck to their routine.
Bad Risk-taking
Strong personalities are naturally adventurous and risk-takers. Sometimes, they may through caution to the wind when considering certain things that could potentially benefit them. The speed with which they take risks may increase their chances of taking bad risks with severe consequences.
Risk-taking is an important ability that everyone needs. For strong personalities who seem to have an overdose of it, it is important that you put a logical check on some of your decisions before you act. In other words, you should learn to think things through before you act.
Priding In Ignorance
Strong personalities are often dogmatic in their established beliefs. They seem to analyse them carefully before they believe them and would never give up on them without a reason. However, they might still be wrong in their decisions. This will make them to keep wallowing in their ignorance even when opportunities to make better decisions arise.
You should learn to have a rethink of things sometimes, not all good decisions are the best ever. Even moreso, you should be willing to upgrade your decisions if results are not as prospective as you would want them.
Jokes May Seem Offensive
I called it a dry sense of humour earlier because jokes from strong personalities can often be perceived as offensive or not even funny at all. That is what makes it dry.
To prevent this from happening, try putting up a smiling face when you make jokes to signal them that you are in your happy, unserious mode. At other times, you may want to hold back your jokes altogether especially, if your audience doesn’t seem to welcome them.
Hopefully, in the future, as you keep expressing yourself, people will come to understand you better and know when you are joking and when you are not.
Now that you have known about the strong personality, the characteristics of the strong personality, problems of the strong personality and solutions to them, it is good time to tell you how you can develop this strong personality I have been talking about.
Personality traits can be acquired, developed and modified. This fact makes it possible for everyone and anyone to become whoever they want, as opposed to the tradition of “this is who I am”.
Also, you have seen the advantages and disadvantages of the strong personality. So you should be in a good position to decide if you like to develop this personality or not.
If you want to develop the strong personality, here are a few tips to get you started.
How To Develop A Strong Personality
To develop the strong personality, here are practical things you should try out.
- Define/understand yourself
- Speak less and listen more
- Learn to be confident
- Learn to be self-dependent
- Focus on being action-oriented more than talkative
- Appreciate and give credit as much as you accept praise
- Avoid seeking approval from other individuals
- Do not be wrapped in your head; let others in too
- Inspire and build others around you
Conclusion
Individuals with a strong personality tend to be fierce and can even be repulsive. However, with good understanding of their intents and with the right moderation, they are some of the best people to be around. Thanks for reading to the end. Let me know what you think in the comments section below.
References
Gulftimes : What are the characteristics of a strong personality?
What is a strong personality and how to tell if you have one
