What are the unspoken characteristics of a high-performer?
High-performing teams is the viral hashtag of the internet right now, when it comes to all things leadership related. You see all types of posts and articles with the following tag line: ‘to build a high-performance culture…’ which is great, and I am all for it. But, I’ve read the majority of those articles and there’s just one thing missing: what does a high-performer look like? What do they do differently than the rest of their team mates? Does every high-performer have the same traits and characteristics or can they vary?
It’s great to have an understanding of how to build a high-performing team, or how to lead a high-performing team, but how do you know when you’ve arrived at the destination? In today’s blog, I intend to lay out some key signs and signals of high-performing team members.
Before I begin, let’s break down what a high-performer actually means. In essence, you have a team member who outperforms everyone else at the team. They sell the most products, the enter the most purchase orders, they take the most calls, they make the most site visits, they complete their reports on time, etc. Essentially, anything that you ask the team to do, this person get’s it done. They not only get it done, it’s done with high quality, on time, with no errors. They tend to have the best metrics on the team, or they win the most MVP’s, perhaps a COE award.
But those accolades are not what helps you identify whether you have a high-performer or not. Afterall, they won those awards, or received that recognition because someone (a.k.a. their leader) had to identify their high-performing talent from early on, maybe when it wasn’t so obvious.
If you scour the internet for high-performing team members you’ll see long lists with the following characteristics:
they set clear goals
they solve problems
they’re keen learners
they adapt quickly
they take action
they’re disciplined
Which are all relevant characteristics of….what I would consider, good workers. This is where I find there’s confusion. These traits and characteristics are what summarize the majority of good workers. The people who do their job pretty well and earn their annual 3-5% merit increase. That’s not who I’m talking about when I mention high-performers in any of my posts on LinkedIn, or the articles found within the Manager Mindset blog.
High-performers are relentless. They never give up and are determined to achieve their goal, no matter what it takes to get there. There’s a sense of pride in achieving something no one else could achieve. High-performers have stamina, a level of endurance that most people do not have. You typically see athletes who move into the corporate world do very well, because of the mindset they have. When applied to business, they tend to outperform their peers, by a long shot. High-performers can also have a sense of arrogance to them or, they can be stand-offish depending on their personality type. They can be amazing to work with, or cause you a ton of headache, again, depending on their personality.
My focus is to dive into the characteristics of high-performers, the ones who continuously move up the latter in the corporate world. The ones you see promoted three, four, maybe five times in their career at one company. The individuals who seem to have it all figured out, while remaining calm, cool and collected on the outside. These high-performers tend to have a strong network of peers built around them, as their relationships tend to have a big impact in their career paths.
Get to the point already….
Ok!
Here’s what I’ve seen to be the true characteristics of a high-performer:
They’re Authentic:
They are who they are, regardless of what others may think of them. Sometimes being authentic comes across as being direct, rude, intense, passionate or commanding to other people. Nevertheless, they stay true to themselves and who they are. They do not sway from their personality.
They’re Direct
High-performers don’t have time to beat around the bush, they need to get stuff done. Their emails and their phone calls could be short and blunt. They get to the point. This may also mean, while in the thick of getting something done, they’re not focused on small talk. They’re not going to ask how your weekend was, or how you’re day is going. They want to cut to the chase and seek the information they are looking for.
They limit distractions:
This can sometimes come across as anti-social. Depending on what’s on deck, they may skip some of the office gatherings, not eat lunch with everyone in the lunchroom, or even minimize their involvement in meetings. They know how to minimize the pings and bings that feed through their laptops and phones by muting chats, turning off notifications, leaving their phone aside while they focus on deep work. They get into the zone and can even be found with earphones in their ears to limit the noise around them.
They do what they say they’re going to do:
We’ve all heard the saying, ‘under promise and over deliver’. This is their secret sauce; and if they happen to make an aggressive promise, they will work morning, evening and night in order to make good on their word. This is probably the biggest strength and one that separates the high-performers from everyone else. Too many people say they’re going to do something and they fall short. Leading people to follow-up and wind up frustrated. High-performers are hyper-focused on the request and meeting their timelines. They’re 99% always within the timelines you’ve asked for, or they committed to. If there’s one characteristic you’re looking for, this is the one.
They’re good relationship builders:
Yes, above I wrote how they like to minimize distractions and can come off anti-social, but high-performers are very good at building relationships. It’s the approach they take to building the relationship. They’re not rushing the relationship; however, they have an eye for detail and remember key comments in their conversations that they’ll bring up every now and then. Allowing for a deeper connection with people; those on the receiving end love hearing they remembered something specific about their conversation. They also know when to make time to build relationships. There’s a time for work, and there’s a time for networking. When put in a position of networking, these high-performers will make relationship building their focus. They’re also not talking about work in all of these conversations, they’re taking time to get to know the person in front of them…strategically of course.
So forget all the posts you see online, talking about how high-performers read their emails, and achieve inbox 0 once a week. That’s nonsense. That’s not how you identify a high-performer. Especially as the Leader of the team. You can’t measure high-performers by how many emails are in their inbox, or by the fact that they set goals. Everyone on your team sets goals! Let’s be real. And if they don’t set goals…you have another issue in front of you.
Now, what are you going to do with this information? How do you apply it to your day to day with your team? How can you turn this knowledge into value?
Let me show you.
Register for my Mentorship Program and I’ll walk you step by step on how to leverage these characteristics.
