Keys to Being a High Achiever

What is learned from this research that can be applied to your leadership style today? Can you become a high achiever or is it something innate? Jay Hall, PhD., identifies the key behaviors that make up a high achiever as follows:

• Belief in the incoherent competence of people.
• Engaged employee involvement. High achievers are viewed strongly by their employees as ones who allow them to participate and discuss openly business issues and concerns.
• Candor, openness, sensitivity, and receptivity comprise the rule in interpersonal relationships rather than its exception.
• Build and maintain employee relationships. Norms of individuality, interpersonal concern and mutual trust are engendered by building and maintaining relationships with their team. This comes by accepting responsibility for ideas and feelings; being open to thoughts and sentiments of others; experimenting with new ideas; and helping others to be open with their personal concepts and attitudes.
• Communication. Messages delivered by the high achiever differ substantially in content and scope.
• Empowerment. High achievers use true empowerment not to manipulate or delegate undesired tasks, but to transfer ownership and pride of work to those working for him or her.
• The high achiever is one who employs an integrative style of management. People are valued just as highly as their accomplishments and productivity.
• Participative practices are favored over unilaterally directive or lame duck prescriptive measures. Moreover, the high achiever finds meaning in his or her work and strives to afford such meaning to others.

Hall says managerial achievement doesn’t depend upon the existence of personality traits and extraordinary skills unique to certain individuals. It depends instead on the manner in which the manager behaves in conducting organizational affairs and on the values he or she holds regarding personal and interpersonal potentials, all of which can be learned. The key to becoming an achieving manager is to learn to behave like one.

LMI Journal May 2012