The Ten Talents of an Exceptional Leader
“Leadership is less about who you are and more about what you do.”
Think about this quote for a second. I’ve seen many articles, books and self-help journals suggesting how you can refine certain innate personality traits that will make you a better leader. But my experience assessing, hiring and developing leaders for the past few decades supports Dean’s claim. While many successful leaders are charismatic, extroverted, polished or personable, many are not. In fact, we all know great leaders who don’t fit this profile, and leaders who do but fail. So what is it that makes for a truly exceptional leader?
In my experience, exceptional leadership is about actions, more than personality traits or personal attributes. This is good news, since we can train and condition leaders to put effective actions or leadership routines into practice—much easier than changing someone’s personality!
As I have worked with numerous organizations and leaders for longer than I care to admit, I have identified ten “talents” or practices that exceptional leaders do consistently and effectively. The best leaders understand that these practices are the vehicles by which they create value and achieve success. Great leaders take these seriously, make time to do them and continuously work to refine and improve them.
Here are the talent talents of an Exceptional Leader:
Talent #1: Set Direction – First and foremost, leaders must create a shared purpose, a unifying reason for existing as an organization or a team. What is it that you’re trying to accomplish? What value will you add? What problem are you trying to solve? What opportunities are you trying to create, and for whom? Answering these questions up front establishes the needed foundation to be successful.
Talent #2: Define Priorities – Once a purpose, vision or mission is established, others want to know what’s required to achieve it. Leaders need to outline the vital few priorities that will lead to the realization of the purpose so it’s viewed as attainable. What will you do and what will you not do? Priorities provide focus.
Talent #3: Inspire Others – Effective leaders inspire the right people—like investors, board members, great talent, etc.—to get on board. The best leaders spend significant time and energy crafting their message into a clear, concise, consistent and compelling story that connects with the motivations of their audience to build commitment, not compliance.
Talent #4: Allocate Resources – Great leaders design a healthy organization structure that puts the right resources in place to deliver on the priorities. The right structure is more than lines and boxes. It provides an “operating system” for the organization with clear roles and accountabilities to achieve your purpose and deliver on your priorities.
Talent #5: Align Work – Once priorities are established and resources are assigned to them, the best leaders work tirelessly to translate the high-level priorities into detailed work plans. The objective here is to ensure everyone in the organization understands how their work contributes to the success of the organization. This creates meaning, importance and purpose for those we rely on to make the right things happen.
Talent #6: Keep Score – Exceptional leaders set clear expectations, create transparency and establish metrics to monitor progress towards the overall objectives and ultimate success. You need to create and clearly communicate a scoreboard so all participants work towards a common agenda and know how they are progressing. This reinforces the shared purpose and connects individual effort to organizational outcomes.
Talent #7: Foster Collaboration – The best leaders create work environments that encourage cooperation and minimize competing priorities and dysfunctional behaviors. Every organization will experience natural conflict. The challenge is in how quickly we overcome it. We all know we can accomplish more if we get people to work together as one team towards our collective success.
Talent #8: Accelerate Change – A leader once said, “When the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.” The most successful organizations are always adopting, and leaders need to show the way. Any bold strategy will require people to think, act, work and lead differently. Effective leaders initiate and embrace change, while guiding others to do the same.
Talent #9: Optimize Talent – Exceptional leaders recognize teaching others to act independently, rather than simply telling them what to do, leads to better ideas and greater outcomes. They work to create autonomy and accountability by coaching others, without waiting for direction from the top. The best leaders also see it as their personal mission to place people in roles where they can be highly successful – even if that requires making difficult decisions on those who are not a good fit with a job or the culture.
Talent #10: Drive Results – Those we consider to be the most exceptional leaders are the ones who lead others to something spectacular. They elevate performance by setting a tone of execution, productivity and continuous improvement. This talent is perhaps the most important and is an outcome of doing the first 9 talents well. Whether it’s a military leader, CEO, sports figure or public servant, we admire him or her because they were successful. Exception leaders overcome all obstacles to deliver great results.
In my experience, the most successful leaders find a way to develop—and expand—each of these talents. What say you? If a development strategy helped you or the leaders around you put the above talents into practice, what would be the impact? What’s missing from this list?