Ten Attributes of High Performing Leaders

I was asked yesterday by a CEO client to list what I thought were the essential characteristics of high performing leaders and team members. After giving a disclaimer about high levels of competency and a deep expertise in their respective areas, I provided my top ten list of suggested attributes for leadership and team effectiveness.

1. Passion: Successful leaders and team members have one idea that has grabbed hold of them and won’t let go. They can genuinely, enthusiastically and readily talk about their idea and the linkage to an uplifting and desirable future. They are passionate communicators and use powerful language to infuse hope and optimism in others.

2. Curiosity: Successful leaders and team members have a deep curiosity about people and what makes them tick. They are continuously looking at and discussing how to build greater effectiveness with and through people as well as technology. They are also curious about their brand and are committed to enhancing it. Their curiosity has them traveling to diverse places, reading broadly and being intellectually engaged both at work and at home.

3. Courage: Successful leaders and team members have the courage to turn their back on what has made them successful in the past. They still experience fear but see courage as essential for accomplishing something noteworthy. They embrace their fears and move forward confidently knowing they are smart enough to learn and grow from whatever they experience.

4. Credibility: Successful leaders and team members recognize that being able to make a contribution takes personal influence. They know that people will willingly follow them only if people believe them to be authentic, credible and believable. They agree with the admonition that people only believe the message if they first believe the messenger, and in turn they strive to be exceptional role models.

5. Urgency: Successful leaders and team members have a healthy dissatisfaction with their current performance. They are continuously thinking bigger about their own personal leadership as well as their role in creating a culture of continuous learning, experimentation and risk taking. They also believe that speed coupled with passionate dedication can achieve something noteworthy.

6. Ownership: High performing teams have members who take responsibility not only for the performance of the team, but they also take complete responsibility for the quality of their personal and professional lives. Simply put, there are no victims on high performing teams. The prevailing mindset is one of “what can I do to make a difference and if I can’t make a difference then I need to make an exit from the team.”

7. Tenacity: Successful leaders and teams don’t give up. Once they have a clearly defined desired future (one they are passionate about and have the courage to pursue) they exhibit deep reserves of resolve and determination. They believe in progress not perfection and are tenacious in the face or adversity.

8. Agility: The world of work demands that leaders and team members be comfortable with ambiguity and that they don’t expect all aspects of their work to be expressed in black and white terms. They have the ability focus intently while remaining open to recalibrating their course of action whenever they learn of a better course of action.

9. Discernment: The ability to filter large amounts of information and determine the one or two most salient actionable points is essential for leaders and teams. Effective leaders listen to gain information, ask questions to understand diverse points of view, and act confidently even in the face of competing ideas and or demands.

10. Results Focused: Successful leaders and team members recognize the difference between taking action and getting results. Their focus is on results and use all of the preceding traits and characteristics to drive their team, department or organization forward.

I have three questions for you:

1. Which of the ten attributes do you do best?

2. Which one challenges you the most?

3. If you could leverage your greatest strength more while also reducing the effects of the attribute you feel challenges you, what impact would that have on your performance?

Three Critical Steps To Telling Your Leadership Story

The first time I learned about the power of a good story I was fourteen years old. My high school counselor, Billie James, wrote me a five-page letter entitled, Prizing Hugh. Billie told me a story about how she struggled in school the same way I was, how she overcame her struggles and how I could also. Billie’s letter built a connection between us that inspired me to try new ways of being successful at school.

Today, with the proliferation of email, text messaging and the now expanded 280-character tweet, storytelling has fallen out of favor. Many leaders have become minimalist communicators, and by doing so have lost the ability to craft a leadership narrative that compels them as leaders as well as propels their employees to action.

When a leader neglects to communicate a personal leadership story, customers and employees fill the void with their own story about what’s important to the leader and the organization. Seldom is this story the most beneficial to the leaders credibility and the organizations performance.

If you want a leadership story that galvanizes employees around a compelling future and increases performance, follow this three-step leadership storytelling formula.

Name Your What

Not unlike Billie James, one of my clients; a senior nurse leader, recounted a story of being at the bedside of a patient when negative news about their health was delivered without regard for the mental well being of the patient. This leader watched negative news delivered poorly eliminate a patient’s resolve to fight their illness. Every leader has a what happened experience that shapes their leadership in powerful and long-lasting ways.

Claim Your Why

Every compelling story answers the question why was the experience important and by doing so carries with it the hopes of a desired future. For my nurse leader client, why this experience was important was that words proved to have the power to heal as well as harm. This insight affirmed for them that nursing has the capacity to not only care for a patients physical well-being, but for their mental well-being also. When nurses do this well, patients heal better, faster and have better clinical outcomes.

Articulate The How

Listeners listen to stories through the filter of how the story impacts them, what they can learn and how they will use the story and its insights to make their life better. While a leaders story may be compelling and filled with insights, listeners are anxious to answer the key question; how will I use this information moving forward?

When leaders craft a story about what is important, why it’s important and how best to use the information moving forward, they have a significantly greater likelihood of winning the hearts and minds of the people who can do work that matters.

Do you have a key leadership story? If not, take the Monday Morning Mindset Challenge.

Monday Morning Mindset Challenge

1. Identify one event in your career that shaped your leadership. What happened and how did it positively or negatively impact you?

2. Identify one to three key insights from your story. Why was the story important to you and why does it matter that you share the story with others?

3. What suggestions do you have for leveraging how your story and insights can change the world of work for the better?

7 Principles of Transformational Leadership

This week we are launching my new book, The 7 Principles of Transformational Leadership: create a mindset of passion, innovation, and growth. I’m excited for two reasons. The first is that the people who have read the book so far have said that it is approachable, practical, and inspirational. For these compliments I am really honored.

I’m also excited because this book was eight years in the making. It took a long time for me to write it. Not because I didn’t have something to say, but because I was tentative and uncertain. But, when I leveraged the content from my Mastering Your Mindset and integrated it with the 7 Principles of Transformational Leadership, I got transformational results. Specifically, I went from the idea of the book to a book proposal, an agent, to a commercial publisher and a completed manuscript in five months.

There are three benefits you’ll receive from reading my book and one thing that you’ll commit to doing in order to get transformational results. The three benefits are:

1. A way to live your life with unbridled purpose and passion.

2. You’ll execute on your strategic priorities faster and with greater results.

3. You will cascade excellence throughout your entire organization.

That’s great, Hugh, but what do I have to do in order to get these benefits?

You’ll need to articulate your leadership purpose. Leadership purpose is a game changer. It changes the game with regards to the value you provide to your customer and employees. It is the catalyst for living your life purposefully and passionately, executing with greater effectiveness and greater results, and cascading excellence throughout your entire organization.

Ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of the book is to show you how to achieve these types of results. If you’d like to experience the same types of results I did, there is a link at the bottom of this blog post and it will take you to the landing page where there are three offers about how you and I can engage with this content. We can engage with you as an individual or with you as a team or organization. Check out the landing page. I am very proud of this book and believe it can be a game changer for you personally, organizationally, and professionally.

Have a flourishing week and I’ll see you again next week.

Click here to go to the book landing page

Five Reasons People Stop Learning and Don’t Change

I spoke with a client last week that told me of a leader who lost her job because her employees had lost trust in her. They were demoralized because their customer satisfaction scores were the lowest in the organization. After multiple sessions of talking about strategies to reverse the situation, and the development of detailed plans, nothing in the leader’s behavior changed. There was plenty of talk but no action.

There are many reasons why leaders don’t change, but in my consulting and coaching work, I’ve found five common reasons:

1. Inertia. Inertia is seductive. It’s easy to get lulled in to doing your work in ways you’ve always done it even if it doesn’t work anymore. There is a tendency to become enamored with the simplicity of replicating the past and remaining content to do uninspired and pedestrian work. Work that is not creative but is safe and predictable.

2. Ignorance. You can be smart and ignorant simultaneously. For example, a leader can be ignorant about employees’ or customers’ hopes, dreams and aspirations. When leaders lack the knowledge of how to win the hearts and minds of those they work with, those leaders need new information and insight as to how to build personal engagement and commitment.

3. Incompetence. Incompetence in a leadership context is not having the talents and skills to do transformational work while also navigating adversity and change. People who are incompetent are fully capable of doing meaningful work, but need training and mentoring in how to become an exemplary leader. Incompetence is not a pejorative word unless the fourth barrier is also an issue.

4. Indifference. Indifference comes from not having a clear and compelling leadership purpose. While achieving financial results is essential to remaining relevant as a leader, financial metrics as a purpose counter-intuitively ensures lower performance. Making a meaningful difference in employees’ lives as well as customers’ lives, on the other hand, jettisons indifference and brings forth greater creativity, energy and a willingness to grow.

5. Insecurity. Low levels of self-worth and self-esteem are prevalent at all levels of an organization. When I worked with a Senior Vice-President of Operations the biggest factor affecting his effectiveness was a deeply rooted insecurity and belief that he was “the wrong person for the job”.

When I’m asked how to counteract these five barriers I suggest one overarching strategy that not only shatters the barriers, but also catapults leaders to once unimagined heights. What’s the one strategy? Master your mindset.

Monday Morning Mindset Challenge:

Download your copy of the Mastering your Mindset Special Report and isolate the primary negative thinking habit that holds you back. Choose one of the success strategies and implement it starting today.

You can find the report using this link.

Three Questions That Give You A Competitive advantage

What Is Your Competitive Advantage?

No doubt you want a competitive advantage over your competition. A competitive advantage can come in different forms for different people. For example, if you’re a leader you’re competing for the mind-share of the individuals you lead. What will give you an advantage in influencing others behavior? If you’re selling a product or service you are competing with the budgetary requirements of the customer as well as with other vendors. What gives you an advantage?

If you want to position yourself in ways that give you an advantage over your competition I’m going to share one bold statement and three questions that will help you have a competitive advantage. Answer these three questions and you can have a competitive advantage.

Bold statement:
Your competitive advantage needs to be that you give a competitive advantage to your customer for having done business with you.

It’s really quite simple. By giving a competitive advantage to someone you will have a competitive advantage.

Three Questions:

1. What is it that you do extraordinarily well that is highly beneficial to your customer?

2. What are your customers strategic initiatives, and how are you helping them accomplish them in unparalleled ways?

3. What problem / issue are you addressing that it is a game changer for your customer?

When you answer these questions you will have a competitive advantage. But before you check this exercise off your to-do list, take one important and highly valuable next step. Confirm your answers with your customer.

If your answers to what makes you unique and distinctive are compelling for you but not for your customer you do not have a competitive advantage, but rather a performance disadvantage and all bets are off.

If you want to have a competitive advantage provide a competitive advantage to your customers. You’ll know you have done so when customers say, “we cannot imagine doing business without you.” When you hear that, you’re going to have a fabulous week filled with a competitive advantage.