When Good Is Not Good Enough: Building a Leadership Mindset That Stands Out

A truly great leadership mindset demands that we continue to learn, adapt, and evolve. Today, more than ever, the pressures of rising clients and employees expectations create a perfect storm of prioritising focus on the things that truly matter and move the needle. In this article, I examine how to achieve continuous success in today's world—a world that requires new leadership mindsets and a strong commitment to learning and growth.

The global dilemma of never-ending competition

Have you ever known a good, hard-working individual who has lost their job? Have you ever met someone who is a thoroughly nice person and yet they are alone? They had true love for their spouse, but are now divorced? Welcome to the brave new world where good isn’t good enough anymore. This critical shift in attitudes and expectations is not just about effort—it’s about developing the leadership skills, intelligence, and emotional agility to lead, communicate, and deal with complexity in new and specific ways.

In a business setting, customers have so much more choice these days as to where they can spend their hard-earned cash. It’s easy enough to find alternatives. There is plenty of competition for our products and services. The strategies and practices that worked in the past may no longer apply in a changing, agile landscape where innovation and resilience are essential.

What else? If good isn’t good enough, then what else is there? There are plenty of people who are below average, right? It makes sense that good should be okay. However, the game has changed. I think that we are living in a new world of choice and plenty. There are now over 7bn people in the world, all characterized by diverse talents, beliefs, and goals—competing not just for jobs, wives and husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends, houses, holidays, cars, everything!

To succeed in today’s world, we have to be:

O-U-T-S-T-A-N-D-I-N-G

If you want to be good or average these days, then you are settling for a below-average life. In order to settle, it infers that we are going down and slowing down. Anyone can be good enough, however being outstanding is not that difficult either. Here are a few things we can do to be outstanding:

Unleash

Take the brakes off.

Take some risks and dare differently. Being different is to be outstanding.

What’s your uniqueness? Take away the blinkers and look around at your fellow workers. Dare to be better than them. Do more. Contribute without fear.

Fail often. Get up and fail again. Failing isn't failure, it is part of the journey towards success. Most people think that success is a line pointing northwards all the time. Success isn’t that: it is a line that has as many downturns as upturns.

Unleash your potential, I dare you. You’ll develop new abilities through the challenges, pressure, and stress—and that’s how improvement is born. Every project you tackle with courage builds your confidence, strengthens your attitude, and fuels your belief in your own power. Think of this phase as a chapter in your personal development story. Achieving is not just about doing the job, it's the ability to truly adapt a leadership mindset that allows you to truly and confidently change your status.

Show up

I don’t mean turn up for work. I mean SHOW UP. Bring energy and enthusiasm to your work and relationships at work. Imagine that TV cameras are on you every moment of your working day. A leader's best attribute is always their constant and direct efforts.

What would do you do then? You’d show up!

Showing up doesn't mean showing off, but there is little to be gained by hiding away unnoticed. You can do it, it's easier than you think.

This is not about style over substance—a true leadership mindset is about presence, tone, and purpose. Showing up is an act of leadership, a demonstration of your commitment to your organization, your team, and your goal. It signals a resilient, inclusive, and strategic mindset, ready to inspire and uplift.

Think Win/Win

Most people know the concept of win/win. However, not many people truly think win/win when making their decisions. Most go for a ‘win/lose’ approach. To truly think win/win, we must commit to trusting the other party first. Trust in your teams, your manager, and the people around you by truly thinking about them and what they need from you is very powerful as a leader. Most autocratic leaders think, “What can my team do for me?” Invert this thinking to a more powerful leadership mindset: “What can I do for my team?”

Watch your teams’ performance skyrocket as they realise you truly trust them to deliver the needed results. Building confidence, cultivating psychological safety, and communicating expectations clearly are essential attributes of effective, modern leadership in professional settings.

Pay it Forward

We’re all familiar with paying someone back for a good deed that they have done for you. Reciprocity has to start somewhere. Start the greatness by doing something really outstanding without expecting anything in return. Feel how good it is to do something nice for someone just because you can. It's really powerful. Go on, make someone's day beautiful today. If you practice it every day, Reciprocity will be your superpower, I promise.

This behavior reinforces a culture of care within the enterprise. It sets a new standard of excellence and models the kind of strategic thinking that values ongoing trust over one-off gains. It's one of the secret tools of emotionally intelligent managers who know how to build legacy.

Smile

Feel great and let the world know you feel great by smiling. stay optimistic. A smile is the most potent weapon any of us has to build meaningful relationships. Many keep theirs holstered and rarely see the light of day.

A smile is a ‘currency’ that we can use with people to let them know we like them and coupled with good eye contact it will skyrocket your relationships. It also signals emotional intelligence, an essential quality for leading others effectively.

Learn more

If you don't truly know what you're doing, there's no harm in some coaching or an expert opinion. The best improvement strategy is to always keep learning. So what if you've been in the market for 20 or 30 years? The world is constantly running forward, not just moving! And you never know, one of these Leadership training courses you stumble across might just give you the solution to a bottleneck you've been trying so hard to overcome.

Final Thoughts

Having an outstanding leadership mindset shouldn't be a chore, something you have to do. Being outstanding is a skill that we have to sharpen every single day. To be outstanding does require some conscious effort at the start, however we can make these habit-forming behaviours into our daily lives to become part of ``’who we are.”

Start now with that million-watt smile, show up, and think win/win to unleash your full potential. Seek out new opportunities, explore a broader range of experiences.

As top coach Tony Robbins says:

”You only have to be a little taller than everyone else to be outstanding.”