Your Shadow is in the Administrator Pattern. It will be harder, and take more time, to establish a plan and then follow it as it is laid out. You may dislike or chafe at following all the policies in an organization. Details, budgets, and management tasks may be a challenge for you. Whereas Administrators are averse to taking risks, you might not see the risks in a situation until it is too late.

You can develop your Administrator skills through education, on the job training, or life experience. Using your Administrator skills can bring satisfaction if you have developed this weaker area into a “Middle Ground.” However, you will tire faster when using your Administrator skills, and these skills will be the first to under-perform when you are tired or in a crisis.

The Shadow is like using your non-dominant hand to sign a check. While a few people out of ten thousand are ambidextrous, most people are not innately able to do the same functions with both hands. Through education, on-the-job-training, or the school of hard knocks, you may get fairly good at your Shadow function. Yet, this is like comparing a gifted athlete to a highly trained one. The gifted athlete who hones his or her ability will always be a better athlete—throwing farther, running faster, having more endurance, etc. In this way, you may be trained in your Shadow, but it is not your area of giftedness.

One of the hardest Shadows to understand is the Administrator. This is because so many men and women are educated in business with Administrator skills. One leader of a company said, “I manage a $10 million dollar budget, so what do you mean that my Administrator is a Shadow?” The manager was asked, “after managing the details of that budget for 40 hours a week, are you energized or tired?” The answer was, I’m so ready to do something else. This is a strong sign that the person has been well educated in Administrator skills, but they are not a part of the person’s innate gifts.

One way to confirm your Shadow is to have another person take the People Patterns Indicator on you. A spouse, co-worker, or subordinate will have insights about your habits and gifts that you need to see!

Your Shadow is in the Catalyst Pattern. It may be hard or unnatural for you to challenge others and take them to new ground. Whereas Catalysts like to innovate and experiment in life, motivating others to change, you will find these things take a great amount of time and effort. You probably won't enjoy lighting fires under people or spurring them on to unconventional or entirely new methods. While Catalysts are trusted critics, love to be revolutionary, and stir up people, you will find these things hard or distasteful.

You can develop your Catalyst skills through education, on the job training, or life experience. Using your Catalyst skills can bring satisfaction if you have developed this weaker area into a “Middle Ground.” However, you will tire faster when using your Catalyst skills, and these skills will be the first to under-perform when you are tired or in a crisis.

The Shadow is like using your non-dominant hand to sign a check. While a few people out of ten thousand are ambidextrous, most people are not innately able to do the same functions with both hands. Through education, on-the-job-training, or the school of hard knocks, you may get fairly good at your Shadow function. Yet, this is like comparing a gifted athlete to a highly trained one. The gifted athlete who hones his or her ability, will always be a better athlete—throwing farther, running faster, having more endurance, etc. In this way, you may be trained in your Shadow, but it is not your area of giftedness.

One way to confirm your Shadow is to have another person take the People Patterns Indicator on you. A spouse, co-worker, or subordinate will have insights about your habits and gifts that you need to see!

Your Sunlight is in the Overseer Pattern. Overseers like to see the big picture. They work best with principles and concepts as their guiding force. Overseers prefer to work on strategy, aligning people with their right places to work. They think in terms of the vision and direction of things, tending to look at the horizon rather than at what is immediately in front of them.

As an Overseer, you do these things with relative ease, like using your dominant hand to sign a check. You won't have to give these things much thought as they flow naturally from your giftedness. President Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were Overseer leaders.

President Reagan said, “We’ve gone astray from first principles. We’ve lost sight of the rule that individual freedom and ingenuity are at the very core of everything that we've accomplished. Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.” Overseers think in terms of vision. Reagan had a folksy charm and ability to weave in everyday elements that reinforced his principles. Reagan said, “All great change in America begins at the dinner table … If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under … Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.” Overseers concentrate on vision, purpose and steering whatever organization they happen to be in. One person said of Thatcher, “Her strong points were her iron will … anything that required guts and will she could do for you. Anything that required sensitivity, she couldn't, – she had none.

Margaret Thatcher was a tough woman, called the “Iron Lady.” Thatcher served longest as Prime Minister of Britain since 1827 and changed the course of that nation with her politics. She said, “Why do you climb philosophical hills? Because they are worth climbing. There are no hills to go down unless you start from the top … Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul.” Thatcher used whatever tools she had at hand to bring her ideas and plans into reality. Overseers like to focus on the big picture.

Jesus said, The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Here Jesus presents the big picture of his life—from good news to proclaiming God’s favor. Overseers marshal their resources, keeping people focused on their tasks.

Carefully read that section on Reagan, Thatcher and Jesus, as Overseer leaders can be prototypical leaders. And, they need to remember to use their middle areas and Shadows. As the German philosopher Goethe said, “Where there is much light, the shadow is deep.”