The Core Purpose of Leadership: Close the Peak Performance Gap

This is the last excerpt from The Shift from Me to Team, which will be published in March. We hope you have found value in these posts and will want the book as a part of your resources to help you and others become the leaders you can and desire to become. We will continue to blog on leadership to help those who desire to become impactful leaders that make a difference in others’ lives. Thank you for being with us on this book journey…

#leadership #team #PeakPerformance #CoreIdentity #teamdevelopment #ShiftFromMeToTeam #purpose

We emphasize that the key metric for leadership is closing the Peak Performance gap for each team member. Then and only then can the team realize Peak Performance.

Responsibility to others is the foundation of Stage III Fulfillment: Benefiting Others. It is supported by the good feelings we get from helping others thrive. It is our supporting, mentoring, and coaching others to go places they could not go by themselves. While leaders may not get short-term gratification from helping team members grow, they experience a much deeper satisfaction from knowing that the person they are supporting will make their own life, and perhaps the lives of others, better with the help the leader provided.

As shared previously, each team member is doing the best they can. Leadership is responsible for recognizing their effort. If they are not meeting the growth desired to move toward Peak Performance, leadership must look in the mirror, taking responsibility for these factors:

• Is this person a good culture fit for our team?
• Did they have the competency or the potential to do this job when hired?
• Did we understand whether their behavior under pressure was a good fit for this job?
• Are they in the proper position, or is there a better job fit?
• Do they understand what Peak Performance is for this job?
• Have we trained them for Peak Performance on this job?
• Have we given them the tools to perform at the expected level?
• Are we modeling how we expect them to work with others?

Good leaders blame themselves for poor hiring; it is not the hired person’s fault if they were set up to fail. Good leaders take responsibility, taking the blame for poor fit, and giving credit to the team member when they succeed.

Great leaders are aware of the individual performance gaps that inhibit their team from Peak Performance. Team members can feel when someone cares about them becoming all they can be and recognizes their importance to the team. It is the relentless attention to closing the Peak Performance gap that enables team Peak Performance and sustainable success.