Delt Stories

The CliftonStrengths assessment contributed to one of the most pivotal points for success at Delta Tau Delta’s Beta Kappa Crescent Colony. We first learned about CliftonStrengths in February of 2022 during Compass, Delta Tau Delta’s personal development program sponsored by the Delt Educational Foundation. Compass focuses on providing the skills and tools needed to be successful on campus and in life. The program is rooted in emotional intelligence (EQ), which combines three concepts: consciousness of self, others and context. Compass focuses primarily on the context of self — learning more about how you see yourself and how others see you.

Several brothers found great value and growth in their self-awareness by taking the CliftonStrengths assessment. In a short time, they gained a deeper understanding of their strengths and weaknesses and began discussing how this knowledge could benefit them and our colony. Director of Member Development Harry Katz (Colorado, 2026) brought CliftonStrengths to all colony members, who saw its value immediately. Due to this great success, we now require every member to take this assessment, which has helped create a “common language” in our colony.

One of the most interesting and beneficial pieces we took from CliftonStrengths was the concept of leadership domains, a way of framing how we each lead. 

CliftonStrengths has four leadership domains: executing, influencing, relationship building and strategic thinking. Each domain has its benefits and blind spots; however, we discovered those are few and far between when different domains work together. Brothers in different roles in the Fraternity can rely on their domain and strengths in different ways. For example, our President Kettner Hunter (Colorado, 2026) is great at executing, which is essential for ensuring our colony is installed. Similarly, New Member Educator Charlie Tell (Colorado, 2026) is a relationship builder – his strength is his ability to maximize the potential of our new members by relating to them, looking at the bigger picture and drawing out their strengths. It is fascinating how each of our positions in the Fraternity requires a specific set of skills, but skills from other positions complement each other positively.

Even among members at large, leaders from different domains clearly mesh well. 

Executors are direct and down to business; consequently, relationship builders complement them through their unique ability to look at the people in a situation. Influencers create action and influence others to get involved, and they are complemented perfectly by strategic thinkers because of their ability to develop thoughtful plans and prepare for potential failures.

Alex Kennedy, Delta Tau Delta’s director of member education and experience, visited our colony to reinforce these ideas and discuss the value of CliftonStrengths. Kennedy helped each of our brothers understand their core strengths on a deeper level and helped us understand how we lead and why we each work well together. One such example was Strengths Charades — we divided into our domains and played charades by acting out, silently, the 34 different themes/strengths. Seeing how each group approached the game to solve a problem was interesting. Executors acted very quickly and tried to dominate the game. The influencers worked well as a team, influenced each other to make the right decision, and were often on the same page. Strategic thinkers were typically the last to answer but were almost always correct because they were thoughtful in their decision-making process. Lastly, the relationship builders worked exceptionally well together by listening to each other and considering everyone’s opinion.

The Beta Kappa Crescent Colony of Delta Tau Delta has found extreme value in CliftonStrengths. We highly recommend every Delt chapter and colony participate in the CliftonStrengths assessment because it will improve the day-to-day function of chapters and strengthen the brotherhood.

If you’re interested in learning more about using CliftonStrengths at your chapter, contact Alex Kennedy, director of member education and experience.