What Makes a Great Leader? 5 Things Great Leaders Do That Average Managers Don't

If you own or run a home building company, you have probably asked yourself some version of this question: am I actually leading, or am I just managing a title? I hear it from owners, vice presidents and department heads all over the country. Almost nobody was taught how to lead. We were good builders, good salespeople or good operators, somebody handed us a team, and we figured it out as we went.

This is the first of three episodes where I walk through fifteen things I have seen great leaders do consistently. I will cover the first five here. Before the list, though, I want to give you a definition you can actually use, because most of us carry around a fuzzy one.

What is leadership, in plain English?

Here is the definition I would ask you to write down if you write nothing else: leadership is the work of creating and maintaining an environment in which people accomplish goals efficiently and effectively.

Notice what that does. It turns leadership from a personality trait into a job with a task list. Your daily work is to build and protect the systems, the processes and the culture where people can get things done. If your team cannot execute, that is not automatically a people problem. It is an environment problem, and the environment belongs to you.

I also hear people say, “I am not a leader.” But if you are influencing somebody around you, you are leading. That is true at the office, on the jobsite and at the kitchen table. It is also why I say that everything rises and falls on leadership, whether you are talking about your company, your department or your family.

How do you make people feel safe to speak up?

The first thing great leaders do is make others feel safe to speak up. Many leaders intimidate people without trying, just by walking into a room with a title and the power that comes with it. When fear is in the room, people stop giving you their experience, their talent and their ideas.

Two practical points. First, watch your face. I have seen plenty of leaders say “that is great” while their expression says “that is a terrible idea.” People believe the face. Second, respond to a weak idea in a way that keeps the next idea coming. You can say, “That is an interesting thought. It does not fit where we are today, but let's park it and revisit it in a few months.” You are not agreeing with the idea. You are thanking the person for thinking.

If you skip this, you end up on an island. I have seen a leadership team prepare real research for a big meeting, only to have it shut down in front of everyone with a message that this was not the information wanted. From that day forward, the people who did that work stopped speaking up in meetings. One sharp response cost that company a lot of honest information for a long time.

Why do great leaders make decisions faster?

The second habit is simple to say and hard to do: great leaders make decisions. I have worked with owners who were careful by nature. “Let me think about it” is a wise thing to say, but when thinking time stretches from a day or two into weeks or months, the opportunity is gone. Their own team had a name for them: can kickers.

You do not need perfect information. You need enough facts and enough advice to feel comfortable, and then you decide. Sometimes the best move is to have your team bring the facts, ask what they think you should do, and let them run with it. If it is not a call to hand off, you make it yourself. Either way, something has to move.

In my experience, one of the most frustrating things inside many companies is that not enough decisions get made quickly enough. The team loses excitement, loses passion and slowly gives up. We are either moving forward or sliding backward, and standing still is just a slow slide.

How do you communicate expectations so people actually follow them?

Third, great leaders communicate expectations, and this is where I see the biggest gap in the companies I coach. I will sit down with a department head or a vice president and ask where the company is going, what the owner expects, and how often. Too often the answer is, “I am not sure. I think we are supposed to be doing this, but do not quote me.”

If the people leading departments are unclear, the people in the field doing the work are even more so. They think, “I did everything I was supposed to. There is probably a better way, but nobody asked me, so I will do this much and hope it is good enough.” That is a clarity problem, and clarity is the leader's job.

1. Know where you are going. You cannot explain a destination you have not defined.
2. Build the measures. Decide how you will know you got there, and how you will tell how the journey is going.
3. Share the expected results. Tell each person what you expect them to be doing and what those results should look like.
4. Put it in writing. Here is a free one: it is not real if it is not written. A spoken expectation is a suggestion.

How do you challenge your team to think?

Fourth, great leaders challenge people to think. To do that well, you have to understand how each person is wired: their mindset, their strengths and where they can grow. This is emotional intelligence, and it starts with understanding yourself, including your blind spots, before you try to understand everyone else.

It shows up in small ways. The salesperson who does not want to read a fifteen page report. The director who needs a few quick facts to make a call. The finance person who needs the numbers to work and some time to process them. Once you know how someone thinks, you can push them in a way they can actually hear.

Then comes the part that takes discipline. When someone brings me a problem and wants me to solve it, I ask, “What do you think you should do?” Ownership needs to stay in the chair of the person who is responsible. I can be a resource and help them think it through, but I do not need to solve everyone else's problems. If you hear “that is just the way we have always done it,” treat that as an invitation to ask where we are trying to go and whether there is a better way to get there.

People who stop learning stop growing, and over time they become irrelevant in their work. That goes for the owner as much as for the newest hire.

Why should a leader be accountable to the team?

The fifth habit is the one owners tend to skip: great leaders are accountable to others. That does not mean letting people control you. It means allowing the people around you to tell you when you are not producing what they need from you, and then not taking it personally.

If you are the leader, you are responsible for creating and maintaining the environment where your people excel. If you are failing at that, you want to hear about it. That only works if you have already made it safe to speak up, which is why habit number one comes first. Being accountable to others is a sign that you care more about your people's success than your own.

A few months ago I started working with an owner who said, in our very first conversation, that the biggest problem in the company was probably going to be him. He thought he might be creating the most drama and the most challenges, and he wanted help being accountable to others so the whole organization could move forward. I have rarely heard a more promising way to start a coaching relationship.

Your assignment before the next episode

1. Write the definition of leadership on a card and ask yourself: what in my environment makes it hard for people to do their jobs?
2. Pick one decision you have been sitting on and either make it or hand it to your team this week.
3. Ask one person on your team, “What is one thing I could do better to help you succeed?” Then say thank you and do not defend yourself.

These are the first five of fifteen, and they build on each other. When people feel safe, decisions move, expectations are clear, thinking is challenged and the leader is accountable, you have the foundation of a place people want to work. Part two covers the next five.