A recent survey of more than 500 business leaders reveals what sets great employees apart. The survey was to know why some people are more successful than others at work, and the answers were surprising; leaders chose personality as the leading reason.

Notably, 78% of leaders said personality sets great employees apart, more than cultural fit (53%) and even an employee’s skills (39%).

“We should take care not to make the intellect our God; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.” —Albert Einstein

Personality consists of a stable set of preferences and tendencies through which we approach the world. Being introverted or extroverted is an example of an important personality trait.

Personality traits form at an early age and are fixed by early adulthood. Many important things about you change over the course of your lifetime, but your personality is not one of them.

Personality is distinct from intellect (or IQ). The two don’t occur together in any meaningful way. Personality is also distinct from emotional intelligence (or EQ), and this is where the study, and most leaders for that matter, have misinterpreted the term.

The qualities that leaders in the study called personality were actually emotional intelligence skills. And unlike your personality, which is set in stone, you can change and improve your EQ (emotional intelligence).

Exceptional employees don’t possess God-given personality traits; they rely on simple, everyday EQ skills that anyone can incorporate into their repertoire.

Leaders don’t need to go searching for these skills either (though it doesn’t hurt when you find them); their duty is to help everyone on their team harness these skills to become exceptional.

Just consider some of the EQ skills that leaders and managers commonly mislabel as personality characteristics. These are the skills that set exceptional employees apart:

They are willing to delay gratification. One thing an exceptional employee never says is, “That it’s not in my job description.” Exceptional employees work outside the boundaries of job descriptions. They are neither intimidated nor entitled; instead of expecting recognition or compensation to come first, they forge ahead in their work, confident that they will be rewarded later but unconcerned if they are not.

They can tolerate conflict. While exceptional employees don’t seek conflict, they don’t run away from it either. They are able to maintain their composure while presenting their positions calmly and logically. They are able to withstand personal attacks in pursuit of the greater goal and never use that tactic themselves.

They focus. Student pilots are often told, “When things start going wrong, don’t forget to fly the plane.” Plane crashes have resulted from pilots concentrating so hard on identifying the problem that they flew the plane into the ground. An airline in America, Eastern Airlines Flight 401, is just one example: The flight crew was so concerned about the landing gear being down that they didn’t realise they were losing altitude until it was too late, despite alarms going off in the cockpit. Exceptional employees understand the principle of “Just fly the plane.” They don’t get distracted by cranky customers, interoffice squabbles, or switch to a different brand of coffee. “They can differentiate between real problems and background noise”; therefore, they stay focused on what matters.

They are judiciously courageous. Exceptional employees are willing to speak up when others are not, whether it is to ask a difficult (or embarrassingly simple) question or to challenge an executive decision. However, that is balanced with common sense and timing. They think before they speak and wisely choose the best time and place to do so.

They are in control of their egos. Exceptional employees have egos. While that is part of what drives them, they never give their egos more weight than what is deserved. They are willing to admit when they are wrong and willing to do things someone else’s way, whether it is because the other way is better or it is important to maintain team harmony.

They are never satisfied. Exceptional employees have unparalleled convictions that things can always be better and they are right. No one is ever done growing, and there is no such thing as good enough when it comes to personal improvement. No matter how well things are going, exceptional employees are driven to improve, without forgetting to give themselves a healthy pat on the back.

They recognise when things are broken and fix them. Whether it is a sticky desk drawer or an inefficient, wasteful process affecting the cash flow of the entire department, exceptional employees don’t walk past problems. “Oh, it’s been that way forever” simply isn’t in their vocabulary. They see problems as issues to be fixed immediately; it is that simple.

They are accountable. If you are a manager trying to decipher a bungled report, “it’s not my fault” is the most irritating phrase in the English Language. Exceptional employees are accountable. They own their work, their decisions, and all of their results good or bad. They bring their mistakes to management’s attention rather than hoping no one will find out. They understand that managers are not out to assign blame; they are out to get things done.

They are marketable. Marketable can mean many things. Inside the organisation, it means likeable. Exceptional employees are well liked by co-workers. They have integrity and leadership skills (even if they are not in an official leadership position) that people respond to. Externally, it means they can be trusted to represent the brand well. Managers know they can send these employees out to meet with clients and prospects without worrying about what they will say or do.

They neutralise toxic people. Dealing with difficult people is frustrating and exhausting for most. Exceptional employees control their interactions with toxic people by keeping their feelings in check. When they need to confront a toxic person, they approach the situation rationally. They identify their own emotions and don’t allow anger or frustration to fuel the chaos. They also consider the difficult person’s standpoint and are able to find solutions and common ground. Even when things completely derail, emotionally intelligent people are able to take the toxic person with a grain of salt to avoid letting him or her bring them down.

Bringing it all together, take notice of what is not mentioned: Coding Skills, Years of Experience, Business Degrees, and so on. These things matter, but they will not make you exceptional.

Join me next week as we discuss how to tap emotional intelligence, which could be referred to as design thinking, to drive relevancy in business.

Have a blessed week.

•Lawrence Nwaodu is a small business expert and enterprise consultant, trained in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, with an MBA in Entrepreneurship from The Management School, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, and MSc in Finance and Financial Management Services from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Netherlands. Mr. Nwaodu is the Lead Consultant at IDEAS Exchange Consulting, Lagos. He can be reached via nwaodu.lawrence@hotmail.co.uk (07066375847).

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