What Manner Of Great Do You Want To Be?

The following question was recently posed to me by one of my Leadership Academy Program participants. And what a great question it is!

“What distinguishes a great supervisor from a great leader?”

If you’re going to be a great supervisor or a great leader then you’re not willing to be just “average” or allow those people who may be placed in your charge to be average either. You will possess the desire to perform at your personal best and be committed to helping your organization, its people and yourself in achieving optimal success.

As for what makes a great supervisor and a great leader, the answer could be highly interpretive depending on who is providing the answer. From my perspective in any arena of life and business, I like to employ Earl Nightingale’s “KISS” philosophy… Keep It Simple & Straightforward.

So let’s break it down… what does it really take to be “great” at anything?

Is it superior intellect? (High IQ, formal education, lots of degrees and letters after your name) Especially in this day and age, there are a great number of SME’s (Subject Matter Experts) who have a fountain of intellectual knowledge, yet are unable to apply it to the specific work at hand. This result in termed as a functional implementation problem or failure to implement.

Is it natural ability? There have been plenty of “can’t miss” prospects, phenoms and Heishman Trophy winners that never made it BIG. In music they refer to them as “One Hit Wonders”.

Is it work ethic? Does the classic axiom that “An honest days work is worth an honest days pay” still hold water today?

If you’re going to travel the road that leads to greatness, then these are the three ways to potentially get there. As you can clearly see, there isn’t one right answer. There are many highly successful people that have traveled each of these roads to greatness.

To clarify this, let’s use an analogy that is easy to follow. If I’m managing a professional sports team, then I need to know, weigh and then correctly play the odds that will provide me with the best opportunity to attain the result I want. For me personally, in considering these three types of candidates I would almost always take the person with the strong work ethic. Here’s my reasoning… Charlie Hustle will always out work and out perform the smarter or naturally gifted person because they want it more and are willing to work harder to get where they want to go.

This is exactly why Joe Namath, Cal Ripken, Michael Jordan, Chi-Chi Rodriguez, Lee Trevino and many others are in the Hall of Fame. Everyone said that they were too small, not talented enough or couldn’t play the position. While he’s not in the HOF, one of all time the best examples of Charlie Hustle was Pete Rose.

Then, there is another rare breed of people who are great at what they do in life because they embody more than just one of these aspects. Tiger Woods was the perfect example of this for most of his youth and early professional career. He intellectually knew everything and every nuance about the game of golf and how to intellectually “manage” his mental game around the golf course as well as his will to win. While Tiger had great natural ability, he also learned as John Maxwell wrote that “Talent Is Never Enough”. So, not only did he proceed to learn and master even more skills… He used a masterful work ethic to polish them, sharpen them and engrain them.

So my question for you is this… What manner of “great” do you want to be?

Coming soon, the sequel article “Distinguishing Great Supervisors From Great Leaders”.

Copyright © 2013 Developing Forward | Thomas H. Swank, CBC | All Rights Reserved.