3 surprising qualities of exceptional leaders

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BY Sara Sabin

We tend to think of great leaders as especially charismatic or inspirational. They’re the smartest person in the room and the captain sailing the ship.

The limitation with this understanding of what great leadership looks like is that the company, community, or movement becomes dependent on that leader to drive it forward. These leaders may have other people in their team, or followers who help them, but they are essentially the glue that holds the organization together—and without them, the organization’s legacy doesn’t live on in quite the same way.

The other problem with thinking about leaders in this one way is that it causes?introverted people with natural leadership skills ?to often hold themselves back from saying that they are a leader because they don’t identify with this narrow lens of leadership. They might not think of themselves as charismatic or outspoken enough to succeed at the top of an organization.

However, there is another type of leadership that many find surprising and that creates the most exceptional results when applied within a company.

The irony is that we don’t often hear about these leaders; they aren’t in the limelight. They’re the ordinary person in the background . . . quietly, modestly, and unwaveringly steering the ship toward exceptional results.

Business author Jim Collins calls this “Level 5 Leadership” in his book?Good to Great . Collins originally looked at 1,435 Fortune 500 companies on the initial candidate list for his study of great companies and found that only 11 of those companies went from “good” to “great” results. They were companies that outpaced by far the rest of the industry. All of those companies had Level 5 Leaders within their senior ranks.

“The 11 good-to-great CEOs are some of the most remarkable CEOs of the century,” writes Collins. “Yet, despite their remarkable results, almost no one ever remarked about them! . . . The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal or become unreachable icons. They were seemingly ordinary people quietly producing extraordinary results.”

These execs include people like Dick Cooley, CEO of Wells Fargo in the 1970s, and Darwin E. Smith, CEO of Kimberly-Clark from 1971 to 1991. As these types of nonconventional leaders are relatively rare, it gives a huge competitive advantage to a company to have Level 5 leaders in key positions.

So what are the qualities possessed by these exceptional and rare leaders??

They are ordinary, accessible, and humble

The remarkable thing about these leaders is that they seem unremarkable. They might seem shy, introverted, even a bit awkward. And this can work to their advantage, as people can relate to them, and they are not trying to be heroic. But don’t be fooled: They are ordinary people producing extraordinary results.

Where a “hero leader” may derive satisfaction from taking the credit for results because it feeds into their self-image, an exceptional leader will always share the credit with others first when the team is winning. This humility contributes to team bonding and makes them more likely to achieve excellent results.

An example is Ken Iverson, CEO of Nucor Steel for some 30 years, who was responsible for transforming the company from near bankruptcy in the 1960s into one of the most successful companies in the world. Described as a “very modest and humble man” by a former Board member, he rarely talked about himself. He was modest in both his professional and private life and, like many Level 5 leaders, preferred to talk about the contributions of others and his team.

Such leaders are also the first to take responsibility when things go wrong. The absence of a blame culture allows people to feel free to admit their mistakes (rather than covering them up or blaming someone else) and focus on the actions that need to be done to overcome challenges. This type of culture promotes psychological safety, a key proponent in high-performing team cultures.

They are focused on the success of the company, not the self

They are focused on the “we,” not the “me.” Many executives tend to get caught up in their egos, which leads to an overfocus on self: how they look, how they are perceived, looking useful, avoiding being blamed. This detracts the focus from what is good for the company.

Exceptional leaders are people with conviction who are passionate about the mission of the company they work for and the job they are there to carry out. Financial rewards are a by-product of carrying out the mission well, not the primary focus. Passion is contagious, and your employees are more likely to be inspired to achieve goals if they can feel your passion and see the bigger picture.

Because they also are focused on the company (rather than protecting their own position), they focus on creating new leaders, which is essential for the long-term success of the company.

They are focused and disciplined

Exceptional leaders have a ferocious resolve to do what needs to be done and to produce the best long-term results, no matter how difficult. They focus on process and action in order to drive the results they want for the company.

Being results-oriented as a leader means they are constantly looking for ways to get better. Rather than settling for the status quo, they are always looking to improve. They set the standards and model the behaviors they want in the employees of their company.

For example, when Darwin Smith was CEO of Kimberly-Clark, he made a list of things to stop doing and take out of the budget. Rather than sticking to the status quo, Smith made a radical decision to eliminate their paper business, sell the mills, and invest their budget into the emerging consumer business. He saw the direction of travel and made a decision that paid off and took the company to great heights.

This leads into how these leaders manage their teams: They are experts at putting the right people in the right roles because understanding where others might succeed is crucial to the success of the company. They expect a lot of themselves and of others. And because of their focus on the company, this means expecting the team to step up and perform—or accept the consequences.?

Being around an exceptional leader encourages each team member to step outside of their comfort zone and do more than they thought possible. Therein lies the magic of the exceptional leader. They realize that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or of any one individual.

Sara Sabin is an entrepreneur and transformational leadership coach. She coaches leaders into their powerful leadership identity, to create an empowered team culture and take business growth to the next level.

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