Wellington vs CliftonStrengths

What does CliftonStrengths offer?

CliftonStrengths is Gallup's strengths assessment, named after the psychologist Donald O. Clifton and known for years as StrengthsFinder. At the time of writing Gallup describes it as a strengths-based development tool for learning, leadership and professional growth, says it takes about 30 minutes, and explains the format plainly: you see paired statements and choose which ones best describe you.

The output is a ranking. Your answers order 34 themes from most to least characteristic, and the themes sit in four domains that Gallup names Strategic Thinking, Relationship Building, Influencing and Executing: Analytical and Learner in the first, Empathy and Relator in the second, Command and Woo in the third, Achiever and Discipline in the fourth. Gallup describes a theme as a way to say what you naturally do best, or what you might need help from others to accomplish.

• Top 5. The entry product returns your five strongest themes with theme definitions, personalised insights and action items.
• All 34. The fuller product returns the complete ranking, with sections on areas of excellence, blind spots, the themes at the bottom of your list and how your results spread across the four domains.
• Role reports. Separate reports are sold for managers, leaders, salespeople and students, each reading the same themes through that role.

The commercial model is a purchase rather than a subscription. At the time of writing every version is paid, the pages describe a one-time purchase per report, and someone who bought the Top 5 can pay again to upgrade to all 34. Access runs through Gallup's platform, where results can be shared with a team or a coach. Individuals buy it, but managers, teams and universities buy it in volume.

What is the evidence behind the 34 themes?

CliftonStrengths is a talent-themes model rather than a taxonomy from the academic literature on personality structure. The themes were derived inside Gallup from its own studies of high performers, and the psychometric case for them is made in Gallup's own technical documentation, which the company publishes and updates along with responses to critics. That is a real body of evidence, and it is not the same kind of evidence as sits behind the Big Five.

The difference is who did the checking. The five-factor structure emerged from decades of independent lexical research, and it earned its place partly because rival groups tried to replace it and failed (Goldberg, 1993). The same factors turn up in questionnaires and in adjective ratings, and in ratings made by people who know the person as well as in self-reports (McCrae & Costa, 1987). A model that survives that many outside attempts to break it is in a different position from one whose main technical record is published by its owner.

Strengths themselves do have an independent literature, and it sits under a different classification. The 24 character strengths grouped under six virtues (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) have been surveyed at large scale: in a study of 5,299 adults, hope, zest, gratitude, love and curiosity were the strengths most consistently associated with life satisfaction (Park et al., 2004), and an analysis of 1,063,921 online responses across 75 nations found the rank order of the 24 substantially similar from country to country (McGrath, 2015). Those findings are about that classification, not about Gallup's 34 themes, and the two lists are not the same list under different names.

What does Wellington offer?

Wellington is a science-based personality assessment from Therabot Labs LLC. It measures personality as continuous traits, built on the Big Five and HEXACO models, and writes the results back as a personal report rather than a type.

The free Snapshot asks 60 questions, takes about 7 minutes and scores 6 broad dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness to Experience and Honesty-Humility. Each is a percentile against a reference sample, reported in one of three bands, with a written page for the band you land in. The first ten questions are answered before anything is asked of you; after question ten you sign in with an email address so your answers are saved and your results can be shown. No card is needed, and the norms are provisional while the norming sample is completed. The bands and the Portrait names exist to make the result easier to talk about; the percentile is the measurement, and it is always shown alongside.

The Wellington Membership, $4.99 a month, adds the Portrait: 336 further questions that take the report to 90 traits, including every Big Five facet and all 24 character strengths, with domain overviews, a strengths constellation, a growth plan and a downloadable PDF, then carries the report toward 255 traits across eight domains over 104 short weekly modules, with retests in year two. Wellington is a wellness tool for reflection, not a medical or psychological diagnosis, and it does not replace care from a qualified professional. It is not designed for hiring or selection, and users can export and delete their data.

Where do they agree, and where do they differ?

They agree that a useful report tells you what you are good at rather than only what is average about you, and that strengths land better when named precisely. Wellington's strengths constellation and Gallup's ordered themes answer the same question about where your energy goes.

• Strengths as the product, or strengths inside a trait report. CliftonStrengths measures talent themes and nothing else. Wellington measures the 24 character strengths alongside the Big Five facets, so a strength can be read against the trait it grows out of.
• Ranking versus position. A CliftonStrengths result tells you which themes are strongest for you. A Wellington score also tells you where you sit against other people on each trait, as a percentile and a band.
• Honesty-Humility. Wellington measures six dimensions, adding Honesty-Humility from the HEXACO model, a factor that lexical studies in several languages recovered alongside the Big Five (Ashton & Lee, 2007). No theme in the 34 covers that ground directly.
• Written pages per band. Every Wellington trait has three pages, one per band, written in advance by the writing and psychology team, and your answers choose which page you read.
• The membership. CliftonStrengths is a purchase and a report. The Wellington Membership keeps going, with a short weekly module and retests in year two.
• Who it is for. Gallup's framing is work, teams and management. Wellington is written for the person who took it, and neither should decide who gets a job.

There is also a measurement point worth making plainly. Ranking 34 themes from a half-hour of forced choices leaves few items behind each theme, and precision falls as the number of items behind a score falls (Credé et al., 2012). That is an argument for reading a long ranking as a rough ordering of your top handful rather than as a precise statement about theme 17 versus theme 19.

Side by side

Wellington scores every trait from several statements on a 5-point accuracy scale rather than from a forced choice between two. The methods page sets out how the bands are drawn.

Questions people ask

Is CliftonStrengths the same as StrengthsFinder?

Yes, in substance. StrengthsFinder was the earlier name for Gallup's assessment, and Gallup's pages still use it in passing when describing the online test that measures the intensity of your talents in each of the 34 themes. Same model, newer name.

Is there a free version of CliftonStrengths?

Not at the time of writing. Every version on Gallup's pages is paid, including the entry product that returns your top five themes, and the upgrade to the full ranking is a further purchase. Gallup does publish free written descriptions of the 34 themes, which you can read without taking the assessment.

Which should I take?

If your goal is a shared vocabulary for a team, with a coach or a manager reading the same report, CliftonStrengths is built for exactly that. If your goal is to understand yourself across more than work, start with the free Wellington Snapshot, which covers 6 dimensions, and add the membership for the 24 character strengths and the facets.

Are the 34 themes the same as the 24 character strengths?

No. They are separate systems with separate histories. The 24 strengths under six virtues come from a published classification (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) surveyed independently across many countries (McGrath, 2015). The 34 themes were developed inside Gallup from its own research. Some names overlap in spirit, and the lists are not interchangeable.

How much does Wellington cost?

The Snapshot is free and needs an email address so your answers are saved and your results can be shown. The Wellington Membership is $4.99 a month, cancel any time, and includes all 24 character strengths and every Big Five facet.