Draw Out the Greatness of Those You Lead

What is a “Leading” Mindset? and Why It Matters

In 2007 I became the CEO of a real estate franchise. Unfortunately, the real estate market had just headed south. Prices fell significantly, and realtors left the business in droves. I found myself responsible for the health and success of a company that was going out of business.

The surprising upside to all of this is that not only did we survive, we thrived. We far exceeded expectations both locally and nationally. What may surprise you is that the key to this success was not a sophisticated management strategy. It was, to put it simply, mindset. In essence, I stopped managing for control and began leading for greatness.

I began to see leadership as a personal investment in the success of my team. A reasonable, rational, and even measured investment, yes, but a very personal investment nonetheless. Understand that I use the word “personal” carefully and intentionally. It has to do with focus.

Whereas a lack of focus on the impersonal side of business can precipitate failure, so also can a lack of focus on the personal side. Personally, everyone wants to win. That might seem obvious, but somehow this “reality bite” gets lost in the business shuffle. As leaders, we tend to see employees through the lens of their business roles, and we manage to those roles. However, roles don’t excel—people do.

In 2007 I took to heart that every employee, every agent, every client lead, and every manager on my team wanted to win. When I considered that these “persons” were going to make or break my business, the solution became apparent. I accepted responsibility for bringing out the greatness of my team, and my leadership took on an entirely different tone. That tone produced trust, and trust increased individual creativity, effort, and ownership. This shift in mindset changed the culture of our office and ultimately our results. What follows are simply definitions and details.

Mindset Is Where It Begins

Mindset is what we believe. What we believe determines the decisions we make, which determines the actions we take, which determines our results. Mindset drives the conclusion of every human endeavor.

An interviewer once asked Urban Meyer, head football coach of the Ohio State University Buckeyes, about his quarterback, Braxton Miller. “Will Braxton Miller be a better passer this year than last year?” the interviewer asked.

I loved Meyer’s response. He said, “If his stats don’t show that he’s a better passer, then the coaching staff and I have not done a very good job at recruiting and developing talent.”(1)

Meyer got it. He had the right mindset. He understood that his team’s success depended on him. He didn’t say, “If Miller’s not a better passer, then he’s not the athlete we thought he was.” Meyer took responsibility for Miller’s development and effectiveness. Basically, he said, “If he’s not better, I’m not doing my job.” That’s ownership. If as leaders we are going to bring out the greatness of those we lead we must begin with the following four-part mindset:

• There is greatness in those I lead. Think of greatness as innate capacity. If our task as a leader is to draw the greatness out of our teams, we must first believe there’s greatness in them. As in any area of life, we tend to see what we’re looking for. Seeing isn’t believing. Believing is seeing, and that’s the key. We must see beyond who they currently are to who they can become.

• I’m responsible for the success of those I lead. It’s easy to blame others for poor attitudes or underperformance. But we’re in charge. We likely hired our teams or contributed to the hiring process, and even if we didn’t, we still must lead by example. That means no blaming. Leaders are not victims. Sure, we only control ourselves, yet our mindset influences everything. By adopting an “own it” mindset, we lead from the front and realize the power of positive leadership.

• Their performance is my feedback. Meyer provided insight into drawing the greatness out of those we lead when he replied: “If his stats don’t show that he’s a better passer, then the coaching staff and I have not done a very good job at recruiting and developing talent.” He used Braxton Miller’s stats as feedback on his performance as a coach.

• It’s my job to recruit and develop talent. Meyer boiled it down to two verbs: recruit and develop.

  • Recruit: Leaders must ask themselves: what am I doing to scout and recruit talent? How big is my talent bench? Do I have a handle on recruiting at all? If not, how do I make that a priority?

  • Develop: We can build teams with genuine potential and still have no strategy for development. Frustration and disappointment result. What am I doing to develop my team? What can I do better?

Here it may be important to make a distinction. “Development” and “training” are not the same thing. Mike Myatt (leadership author and Forbes contributor) wrote: “You don’t train leaders, you develop them.”(2) The point is, whereas training is an information-driven event, development is a relationship-driven process.

Development may include training events, but the overall focus is never on tasks. The focus is on the person, and the objective is to ensure they learn to identify problems, create solutions, and focus on the future. This, of course, requires genuine leadership involvement.

Three Key Leadership Roles in Talent Development

Leaders play three key roles in talent development: (1) trainer; (2) coach; and (3) mentor. Knowing when to wear each hat is crucial, because the mindset and process for each role is different, and each drives a different result:

• The Trainer: As noted earlier, training gives people what they need to know so they can do what they need to do. Ongoing training must be a part of the development process. As companies adjust to new technology and changing consumer needs, teams require re-training. The key takeaway is to never assume training is finished. When to train? When someone doesn’t know “what,” “why” or “how.”

• The Coach: Coaching involves unlocking a person’s potential to maximize his or her performance.(3) When done right, it helps individuals see where they are, where they want to go, and how to get there. Coaching is not micromanagement or advice giving. Instead, it chiefly involves asking the right questions at the right time to instigate the self-discovery and creative thinking necessary to produce better results. When to coach? When someone is stuck in a place of underproductive thinking or behavior and needs to better own his or her circumstances, goals, and outcomes.

• The Mentor: Mentors guide others through the sharing of applied knowledge, professional insights, and personal wisdom. This does not suggest leadership cloning. Rather, a mentor provides input and opportunity so the mentored can develop their own perspective and capacity. The relationship must be safe, long-term, and attentive. Mentors inspire, encourage, and most of all, connect. When to mentor? When someone lacks experience, assurance, and professional depth. And certainly, when they need to discover their own greatness.

The Nuts and Bolts of Mentoring for Greatness

First, get to know your team. People want purpose and meaning. They want to know that what they do matters. They also want their leader to know the value they bring to the company.

Offer them insights into you as well. Tell them your story. Consider leadership guru Simon Sinek’s idea that “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”(4) It’s true with both products and team-building. Knowing your “why”—your passion, purpose, and mission—helps them to say “yes” to your leadership.

Don’t guess—assess. Assessments are powerful tools. They take a lot of the guesswork out of discovering greatness and give you a leg up on developing it. Choose assessments that help you understand the behavioral dimensions relevant to your workplace. Are your team members oriented toward people, or toward tasks? What is their natural pace? How do they deal with change, challenges, or constraints? How do they influence people and outcomes? Where might they make their greatest contributions? Where might they need the most help?

The chief value in assessments is that they objectively identify where each person is geared to excel. This knowledge is foundational to leading teams that play to their strengths.

Help them set clear goals. Setting and meeting goals not only helps to develop greatness, but it also illustrates and accelerates the greatness individuals already have. Ideally, a company should have published goals; then employees should set their own goals in alignment. Realistically, leaders need to come alongside team members to help with goal setting.

Help them stay focused and accountable. The mission, their role, their goals, their strengths—all must stay in focus for individuals to do the right things and get the results they (and you) need. This can be executed procedurally in various ways, but the cultural imperative is one of positive accountability.

The key as a leader is to make sure that objectives are established, understood, and agreed upon.

The message must be that everyone will be responsible for the decisions, actions, and outcomes to which they’ve committed. And remember, you can’t hold someone accountable for objectives to which they haven’t agreed. The key as a leader is to make sure that objectives are established, understood, and agreed upon, and that regular check-ins are clearly intended to bring out the team’s best rather than punish.

For all of this to work, a leader must…lead. From the front. We must model leadership accountability. And just as we must accept our share of the failure if we discover we’ve hired an employee who doesn’t fit, we must also have the courage to tell that employee goodbye, particularly if the person doesn’t accept our culture of accountability or won’t commit to developing the skills or acumen required by their job.

Conclusion

For too many people, work takes away life and energy rather than creating it.

What would the world be like if business leaders committed to helping their employees win?

I love the mission statement of the company I led in 2007: to build careers worth having, businesses worth owning, and lives worth living. The most important phrase is the last. To make a life worth living is the epitome of great leadership.

If we aim to build lives worth living and we succeed, then the other two mission results fall in line. I found this philosophy to be true then and at every company I’ve worked with since. If those we lead win, we win.

References

1. Interview with Urban Myer, College Game Day Show. ESPN. September 1, 2012.

2. Myatt M. #1 Reason Leadership Development Fails. Forbes Online, December 19, 2012. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2012/12/19/the-1-reason-leadership-development-fails/#589361e46522 Accessed October 15, 2018

3. Whitmore J. Coaching for Performance: GROWing Human Potential and Purpose: The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership. London, UK: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2009.

4. Sinek S. Start With Why. London, UK: Penguin Group. 2013.