Four Daily Habits that Separate Giants from the Pack

To become a "Giant" leader who is effective and influential, you need to develop four daily habits, writes Dave Durand.

Most “leaders” are merely ineffective managers in a position of authority. They don’t possess the traits that effective leaders have, so they can’t influence others well. By becoming a Giant, you can become more effective, influential and satisfied in your leadership role. A Giant is someone who has strength of character beyond the norm, is committed to self-improvement, is intoxicated by the discovery of truth and is compelled to help others become their best self.

You must be a Giant to lead Giants, which takes deep resolve, but thankfully, becoming a Giant is incredibly satisfying. People who find the greatest satisfaction and long-term effectiveness in their work know that it’s not so much what you do that matters; it’s who you become when you do it that matters most.

Distinguishing between genuinely great leaders and antiheroes is essential from the start. Anyone who specializes in training knows that undoing bad habits is sometimes as important as building good habits. Here are four daily leadership habits for you to begin implementing right now that will set you on the right path to becoming a Giant:

Daily habit 1: Bring your thoughts to life with action

Billions of companies have been pondered in the minds of many, but few have been started, and even fewer have been successful. At the core, the reason for this is a lack of understanding of leadership. Transforming a concept from paper to reality requires effective leadership. From fundraising to recruiting, leadership drives results. The confusion about leadership stems from the poor example of many pseudo-leaders, like those who merely leverage financial resources as incentives to motivate others. Sales leaders do this by having never-ending contests. Other, more narcissistic leaders manipulate people with a cult of personality, fan following or a certain level of intimidation. Others use advanced technology to wow minions. In the end, these techniques alone fail to attract and develop strong, independent-minded Giants who help them gain traction on a new idea.

Action is essential to accomplishing anything. Many people sit on the couch with a beer and chips watching Shark Tank reruns while declaring, “That was my idea!” The difference between the couch potato and the people on the show is that the entrepreneur took action. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but people who execute are like 5-carat, clear diamonds: they’re rare. Many people put in little effort past just thinking of something great. What they do best is take credit, overthink and remain static. Often, these are the same people who do just enough to land a job, but they don’t decide to be great at it.

Leading a business requires forethought and planning. Overplanning doesn’t always pay off because once you get started, you will need to adapt to the metaphoric punches you take while executing. Taking action with the flexibility to pivot if necessary is better than planning for so long that opportunity passes. If you simply just take action, you’ll see results. They may not always be positive results, but they will provide insight and the experience gained by execution will be valuable. Businesses are founded on action, not on thought alone.

Daily habit 2: Find concrete reasons to believe

Giants find reasons to believe, and they do it daily. They set a goal and begin building a realistic case for how and why they can and should accomplish it. In my organizations, we recruit the very best people and have discovered they have a common trait: they find reasons to believe in what they want to accomplish and have built their conviction to the degree that they often defy the odds. Of course, we required particular degrees related to specific roles, such as finance and legal counsel, but beyond that, particular qualifications didn’t matter to us. 

We made sure not to stunt our growth by overthinking someone’s resume or credentials. Instead, we looked for Giants, and we found them in every corner. Consider how many entrepreneurs have become highly successful without degrees but with conviction. Ironically, many wouldn’t even meet the minimum job qualifications in most companies. Yet they often go on to build a company even bigger than the one that would pass them by for not meeting their “standard.” They are action-oriented, knowing that’s the only way to gain the experience needed to succeed. Qualifications can open doors, but action and expertise built through conviction keep you in the room.

Daily habit 3: Break your morning down into 3 daily tasks

One way to infuse virtue and productivity into the daily operations of your organization is to help people define the three things that they must do every day to succeed. While these top three things may differ depending on position or responsibilities, they are the main drivers that create results. 

This is something that everybody, from the CEO down to entry-level workers, must do. In my experience, the first two should be the same for everyone.

• First task: Get your head right
  No matter what your role, if you’re not mentally in it, you can’t excel. Clear out the irrelevant and get focused. Distractions of all types hurt performance. Good news, bad news or just plain noise can all have the same distracting effect. Your joys and problems will all be ready for you when you’re done with work, so put them aside and get focused.
• Second task: Guard the culture
  Live the culture out. Be a part of what makes it a great place to work. Be the person who makes people want to work there, buy there and post positive reviews.
• Third task: Do the thing that moves the needle most before anything else
  For salespeople, the thing that moves the needle is to get in front of a certain number of clients each day or week. Know what that number is and get it done. The sales will follow after the appointments are set, so get that done first. You can fix a closing percentage or average order size, but only if you’re in front of customers, so make it that simple.

For CEOs, the main driver is talking to your key influencers. Who on your team do you need to check in with to make sure they have their head on straight, the culture is healthy and key drivers are in action? If you know that your leaders are highly effective and that you have provided them with the authority and resources to get their job done, then you know your primary task is set for the day. So, don’t waste time on emails and data until after you know your key leaders have everything in order. These are just two examples, so determine what your key task is and do it every day.

Realistically, these three things are not done one after another. Instead, they are done simultaneously. They are not just something to check off a list. They are what anchors the team in action. Each team member knowing what moves the needle in their role is essential. 

Daily habit 4: Keep primary responsibilities primary, or you will unconsciously complicate secondary responsibilities

You can’t rely on all employees to be highly virtuous people. They may not all be working toward good things for good reasons, but they can still be motivated to behave well. This is because, even though they may not love their coworkers, they probably love their Mercedes, and for that reason, they behave. This is challenging because low-virtue people can hide themselves in a crowd. They can appear to do good things for the right reasons, but at some point, they reveal themselves. Often, once a person has a certain amount of wealth or power, you start to see where they have a deficit in character. Before that, self-preservation can motivate good behaviors. The point of all this is that we often have layers of incentives that can mask our true character. We use one task as an excuse for not doing another one. Or we pay attention to certain topics, not because they are important, but because they distract us from the issues we don’t like, even if those are the crucial ones. 

This is especially true when it comes to our primary responsibilities and our secondary responsibilities. In order to adhere to your third daily habit (break the day down into three daily tasks), you need to stay on task. That is, you need to do the third daily task before you move to lesser tasks. If a salesperson has the primary responsibility to get five appointments every day, then their other tasks are secondary. Those would likely be some administrative things like organizing spreadsheets or cleaning out old documents. Unproductive employees and bad leaders alike will make secondary responsibilities more critical than their primary tasks.

Written by:  Dave Durand, 9-figure founder, keynote speaker, bestselling author, award-winning CEO of Leading Giants and executive chairman of Best Version Media, for SmartBrief.