There are examples of exceptional leadership, all around us, but can you define it? What makes an exceptional leadership, exceptional? It’s certainly not a job title or economic status, so then, what is it?

Exceptional leadership is the ability foster and develop the love, trust and respect from others need to inspire them to both listen and follow you anywhere. This definition of exceptional leadership allows us to take a more holistic approach to identify and build out what it takes to be an exceptional leader.

It’s the qualities of a person that endear others to listen and follow, not a title or position of power, and it’s these qualities that are important for leadership. There are four leadership qualities that I feel are the most critical to exceptional leadership above all others, and these are what I’d like to discuss today. As we detail these out, my aim is to demonstrate how these qualities can help you improve your own leadership, regardless of who you are and what you do professionally.

The first quality I want to talk about is how exceptional leaders re-frame the problems we face to find a viewpoint that can motivate and empower proactive solutions. Exceptional leaders will always seek to understand the problems they face and then re-orientate their frame of view to one that empowers meaning from the situation. They will seek to frame the problem so that it provides themselves and others with the motivation to resolve that problem.

Instead of getting despondent or overwhelmed by a situation, an exceptional leader will find a way to describe how resolving the issue is really an opportunity to improve. Framing problems in this way motivates and empowers both themselves and others to deal with whatever comes their way. By doing this well, consistently, exceptional leaders often become known for their ability to produce solid outcomes in the face of adversity, and this is how they do it. The second quality is how exceptional leaders tend to only focus on what they can control and ignore those things they can’t.

Exceptional leaders will always resist the temptation to blame negative situations on things outside of their control. They understand that blaming things outside of their control will almost never improve the situation they face and is therefore unproductive. Instead of seeking to blame an external force, an exceptional leader will ask themselves “What did I do to cause this situation?” and “What can I do to improve it?”. They then empower every member of their team to do the same.

Asking these two questions will elicit the things that are within their control and allow us to identify those things that aren’t. By focusing on the things, we can have control over, and ignoring those that we can’t, we can ensure that our energy is best spent on achieving productive future outcomes.

The third quality is an interesting and often misunderstood quality, where exceptional leaders favor being process orientated over goal-orientated in how they approach delivering their work.

Exceptional leaders focus less on the goals they are trying to achieve and more on continually improving the processes they use to achieve those goals. They understand that by continually improving how they execute, their outputs will always improve as a result.

This is essentially the core premise of Lean thinking. i.e., continually iterate upon factors you can measure for improved work outcomes. The leaders' intention is to seek perfection in how they work, knowing that this will naturally result in improving what they output.

Being process focused means leaders need to measure the effects of any changes they make to how they work. It’s these measurements of improvement that then become the backbone for any performance indicators and are what the leader will use to inform their decisions on.

By focusing on improving the way we work to achieve our goals we ensure our goals are continually met and exceeded.

The fourth quality and final quality is the most important of them all. Exceptional leaders will make it all about other people. Building up others is not something that comes naturally to everyone, especially in larger corporate environments. It is, however, something exceptional leaders do by habit.

In a team working environment they understand that building others up around them and focusing on ensuring their success considered, achieved, and celebrated, is the only way to lead people. By aligning individual goals with more holistic team goals, the consequence of ensuring all individuals succeed will result in the teams meeting its goals. Exceptional leaders understand that this is the hidden advantage of making it about other people and that such an approach is why exceptional leaders learn to enjoy and encourage the success of others. The best leads often get to a point of making others success a core personal driver for themselves.

There you have it, the four leadership qualities that help define exceptional leadership. It’s important to remember that leadership is not rocket science and it’s something we can all improve. By re-framing the negative situations, we face, focusing on what we can control, seeking to continually improve HOW we do things, and empowering those around us to succeed, we can all become exceptional leaders, should we wish to be. Are you an exceptional leader?