Characteristics of High Performers Powering an Elite Team
The pandemic has led organizations to develop strategies to adapt to the rapidly changing conditions and how to match the employees to new roles and responsibilities. Every workforce seeks and strives to have individuals who show up on time, take direction well, get the job done right, and generally keep the work flowing.
They adopt various approaches during recruitment and selection, succession planning, performance rewards, employee development, etc. to identify, develop and recognize high-performing individuals as they significantly contribute towards organizational productivity. Low and average performers as well attempt to benchmark high performers as it is natural that every individual strives to and wants to perform well.
For an organization, it’s essential to be honest about where their employee may stand. High performers don’t have any characteristics of a solid or a low performer.
Characteristics of High Performers
High performers always exhibit behaviors correlated with the organization’s standards, mission, values, and goals along with their own aspirations. Some traits of high performers include:
Self-Confident & Self Concept
High performers tend to be confident and have real confidence in their judgment and abilities. They have a positive image and perception about themselves and consider themselves responsible for their own achievements.
Passionate, Zealous & Opportunist
Individuals who are enthusiastic about their work or task and remain actively interested in it, perform well in the organization. They look for opportunities and leverage them in all possible situations.
Learning Oriented & Attain Mastery
These individuals make efforts to gain more knowledge and information about various things going beyond their current task and develop themselves. For example, they can seamlessly transfer the skills they pick up in the pool to their posture and efficiency while running any projects.
Goal Oriented, Planned & Prepared
Individuals having high-performance orientation tend to set ambitious goals and are motivated and confident about achieving them. They prepare detailed plans for activities in a manner such that they complement each other and constitute the best use of their time.
Engaged & Determined
High performers demonstrate a high level of commitment and involvement towards any given task. These individuals tend to be certain & determined by being assured, strongly inspired to succeed, and handle the situation at hand.
Focused & Persistent
Individuals with the ability to perform well are often able to concentrate on something for a longer time without being distracted by situational influences and exert sufficient efforts over a period of time to achieve a goal.
Accuracy & Quality Oriented
Individuals with high-performance orientation tend to be predisposed to be accurate, free from error and attaining excellence or superiority in whatever they do.
Unconventional & Novel
These individuals are willing to explore and experiment with new ideas and challenge traditional norms and methods.
Flexible & Handles Objection
High performers remain relaxed and secure under all kinds of circumstances. They handle pressure well and do not get disheartened by criticism and failure.
Open, Adaptive & Accepting
High performers are receptive and accommodating of all kinds of situations and also changing in order to deal with them when required. During Covid-19, these individuals were able to adapt to the changes with more ease and accepted roles and responsibilities openly.
While it’s important to keep the entire workforce engaged, it’s particularly important to keep high performing Individuals (employees) engaged. High performing employees are often selected for the company’s succession plan. They already hold the right attitude and skills and take on new responsibilities and tasks that interest them. It is likely you won’t have to seek suggestions from them on what they would like to do.
Solid performers with more support, and when coached properly can become higher performers. Low performers can be coached to get promoted to middle performers and then high performers, too. Accurately recognizing the performance level of your team members fall in, is a necessary step to move the organization to perfection.
Organizations can create an enabling environment that sparks the development of a high-performance-driven culture and teams, wherein a well-designed performance management system can be one of the contributors. When each individual strives towards higher performance, they thereby form a high-performance team that consistently seeks to improve performance, operate efficiently and reduce burdens.. A high performing team also establishes a structure in which employees take ownership of their jobs and ambitions. When everyone is held accountable, there is a built-in sense of gratitude for everyone’s work. In this manner organizations can move towards creating a high-performance workforce.
