In Leadership, Good is the Enemy of Great

Regardless of your field of work, it’s likely that your pay, promotion, and overall employment is dependent on the numbers and results that you bring to the table at your organization. Whether we like it or not, we live in a results-based world, and today the pressure to perform is higher than ever. With this in mind, when expectations for performance aren’t being met, you can bet your organization’s leaders will want answers. So, when a worker isn’t meeting a performance goal, who is to blame? Is the employee’s manager at fault, or can lackluster performance be directly attributed to the employee?

Truth be told, there’s no easy answer to these questions. In my experience, I’ve often seen underperformance as a result of an individual’s mistakes. However, I have more commonly found a deficit in results to be derived from a combination of both employee and leadership shortfalls. Does this mean that a leader who does not get good results is not a good leader? It certainly does not. In fact, many leaders who manage underperforming teams are some of the most skilled. So, what is the difference between the leader who gets extraordinary results, and the one who doesn’t?

It all comes down to this: good management skills aren’t enough to get great results.

In his book, “Good to Great,” Jim Collins said, “Good is the enemy of great.” This is something that has stuck with me, and I believe it to be true. As leaders, we should never be satisfied with “good,” or we will inhibit ourselves from growing into greatness. This is important, because expanding upon the answer to the last question, great leaders get great results.

In my decades of experience and through research for my latest book Leadership Charisma, I have learned many key differences in the characteristics between good leaders and great leaders, and I’d like to share some of them with you. My hope is that you will use this information to develop your leadership, from good to great.

Great leaders:

Lead by example.
Great leaders often hold themselves to the highest standards. It’s never about meeting expectations – it’s about exceeding them. Great leaders create and control the environment of the organization in which they lead by always being personable, dependable, timely, goal-oriented, and an expert in their field. Great leaders have created atmospheres that strike a delicate balance between maximum conduciveness to high-performance, development, and incentive, with the satisfaction of individual psycho-social and personal needs.

Give recognition generously.
A great leader will always give credit where it’s due, regardless of the performance of the team as a whole. The power of recognition is so great that it overcomes that of monetary incentives and rewards. If you catch even your worst-performing employees doing something right, praise them publicly and you’ll see their attitudes change. The great motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said, “The easiest way to knock a chip off someone’s shoulder is to let them take a bow.”

Are never finished.
Great leaders celebrate their successes, but never become complacent. They continually raise the bar for their expectations of success, because they know they are never finished learning or growing, and that there will always be more to achieve. Often the final determining factor between a good and great leader is how they handle their successes, and how they follow-up after the fact.

Set expectations for their people.
Dale Carnegie outlined ten timeless principles for perfect human relationships, one of which is “Give people a high reputation to live up to.” Great leaders let their people know what they are trying to achieve, train them well, and always invest confidence in them. These leaders will openly profess their faith that they know their employees will excel. Give them a great reputation to maintain, and they will!

Finally, I want to leave you with this: Always strive to better yourself as a leader. You will have failures; don’t throw in the towel. Rather, use them to better yourself from good to great. Use your successes to fuel the hunger you must have to achieve future goals, and always remember – “Good is the enemy of great.”

Bud Haney is cofounder and CEO of Profiles International. He is a coauthor of the business guide 40 Strategies for Winning in Business and Leadership Charisma, a leadership book written to help people harness their personal and professional charisma to improve their business and careers.