Why Great Leaders Look Beyond Results

3 Insights for Your Leadership Journey

Leaders help people be productive. If anyone tells you that results don’t matter, ignore them. However, how you achieve positive outcomes and what you can do as a leader to help your team deliver results more consistently is a skill. Here are three principles to remember:

I. Rewarding people based on short-term results without looking at how the results were achieved is a recipe for long-term suffering.

What it means:

How you deliver results matters. Let's take baseball as an example. If the home run champion wins the award because he cheated and took steroids, we must consider how he achieved those results. Ignoring the character or behavior that contributes to outcomes will eventually lead to cheating or taking shortcuts. It is important to encourage team members to work smarter, not harder, while also emphasizing the importance of doing the right things to succeed.

II. Good managers define “What good looks like.” Great leaders define “What great looks like.”

What it means:

A standard is defined as “what good looks like.” A speed limit sign on the highway is a perfect example of standard that influences behavior. However, managers often set a low bar instead of a high one. Great leaders aren’t scared to demand excellence, and neither should you. Raise the bar, don’t lower it.

III. You have to put in more effort to make something appear effortless

What it means:

Author Sahil Bloom defined the Effort Paradox as, “You have to put in more effort to make something appear effortless.” The reality is most people’s work ethic doesn’t match the expectations of their results. Stop underestimating the amount of time, energy, and effort required to master skills and achieve sustained results. If you or you team are unwilling to put in the work, lower your expectations for results.

Keep Leading Your Best,

John Eades

Why Great Leaders Look Beyond Results

We’ve all heard the saying, “The results speak for themselves,” but do they?

Many managers find themselves in the unenviable position of chasing short-term results to save a month, quarter, or even a job. Days are filled with Hail Mary projects, heavy deal discounts, and team meetings that create anxiety and burnout. Eventually, the ramped-up urgency and intensity toward achieving immediate results works, or it doesn’t, then the cycle starts over, or the job ends.

Focus on the Future (Video)

A comment I can’t stop thinking about. “No one wants to work in an organization that gets left behind.”

The key to not being left behind is having employees at every single level willing and able to unleash change.

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