When we speak of character, what we actually mean is: “Do I trust you?” This is largely because we have been taught that the qualities of honesty, morality, and ethics universally describe character. But there is more to it. When leading performance, especially sustained performance, there is another type of character that we need to consider – and that is performance character. The real question when it comes to performance character is not “Do I trust you?”, it is “Do I trust you will do what you are able?”
Employees who accomplish great things, not mediocre performance, combine a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve, overcoming whatever the obstacles are, no matter how much time and effort it might take. They push themselves to the edge of their ability again and again.
It takes grit. Grit is a positive trait based on an employee’s passion and tenacity for a particular long-term goal coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve the respective objective. Higher levels of performance are latent with obstacles and challenges. If it were easy to be a high performer, then nearly everyone would perform at that level. Since it is difficult, employees need perseverance of effort.
Achieving high levels of performance is equally difficult no matter what background you come from. Illustrating the dichotomy in our workforce and the need to build performance character, albeit for very different reasons, is a parallel insight coming from of all places, New York City, and even more surprising from schools in New York.
The KIPP schools wanted to build perseverance and performance character in their students so they would excel in University. Their students mainly came from disenfranchised backgrounds and low-income families who did not have much of a hope. They were pretty much destined to a life of mere-survival. But the KIPP schools wanted to change this; they wanted to create a path to “the good life”.
Across town was another type of school catering to a very different group of students; this was Riverdale where tuition started at $38,500 per year, for prekindergarten. Surprisingly, they were facing the same challenge. While their students had everything, success was an assumed reality, because it had always been a part of their life and as a result these success-destined kids did not perform at their highest level.
These two microcosms of education groupings in New York, describe at a macro-level two parts of the UAE workforce – those who have very little and those who have it all. The commonality in both is the need for performance character to achieve all they are able.
We are not discussing average performers here, we are looking at what it takes to lead your team to achieve their maximum, to become high-performing or you could say to tap into discretionary effort – the level of effort beyond the average required that people can give when they want to. After all, it is the desire of every executive to have employees who give their all, all the time.
High levels of performance are difficult; it is often daunting, exhausting and sometimes discouraging. Top performance requires something different from the typical focus on technical abilities and experience. Character, specifically performance character, is at least as important as the technical abilities.
In recent chief executive coaching sessions, the topic of conversation centred on “How can I get my organisation to perform at its best?” There is an appetite for something different. One organisation is even rolling out a “high-performance” workshop for its leaders. But I want to know if they are addressing the critical concern of performance character.
This brings us to the practical point of what do you do as a leader. The easy solution is to sit back and hope that your employees will individually perform at their fullest. This is more than working long hours; I mean to really perform using their fullest abilities. Unfortunately, hope rarely translates into reality.
You need to build performance character in your workplace. I know this raises the question: “Is this really something that can be taught at work?” Definitely it can be and needs to be. If you have people in your workforce who don’t possess grit, and you do have them, then how do you expect them to get it if you don’t develop it.
Unfortunately too many leaders accept what is as reality and do nothing more than hope it were different. Wait a minute; we are back to performance character. This time, we are not talking about someone else’s performance character, we are speaking of yours. It takes grit to build the performance character of others.
Tommy Weir is a leadership adviser and author of 10 Tips for Leading in the Middle East and other leadership writings. Follow him on Twitter: @tommyweir.
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