8 Questions To Decide If You Really Want To Lead a High-Performing Team

Read Time: 3 minutes.

Let me set the scene.

I stepped on stage in front of 350 business owners.
I was delivering the keynote conversation on Day 2.

I say conversation instead of talk because I like to have a back-and-forth with the audience. No one likes to be talked at.

The topic for our conversation:

Mistakes I Made Learning How To Lead a High-Performing Team

As business owners, everyone in that room had employees. They were undoubtedly managers by design. And many were leaders by mindset.

I started that conversation with a statistic that our readers will be familiar with:

60%

"This statistic applies to everyone in this room. Anyone care to guess?"

It took a few beats for everyone to realize I genuinely wanted a response, so I let the silence work for me.

• "% of useless meetings" (probably, but no)

• "% of employees I'd like to fire." (dark. and no)

• "% of us who wish we had a day job." (colder)

But this last one made me pause. It got a strong mix of groans and laughs from the crowd.

This was a room of people who had won. They had businesses large enough to be invited. They believed spending 3 days with other successful business owner was worth their time.

Would they really want to work for someone else?

So I revealed that the 60% number was the number of managers who failed in 18 months. I shared that it had been confirmed in multiple studies by reputable companies. And then I hit them with the knockout blow: One of the studies that confirmed this statistic focused exclusively on CEOs.

Jab. Jab. Hook!

But I was still stuck on that comment about wishing someone else was in charge. And since we we're now talking, I decided to practice what I preach: I got curious.

"By a show of hands, how many of you are willing to do what it takes to lead a high-performing team?"

I expected 95% of hands to shoot straight up.
Instead, I got a reluctant 25%.

Uh oh.

I've got 58 more minutes to talk about the virtue of building something the majority of this room doesn't want.

I honestly appreciated their candor and self-awareness. It is much easier to win when you know what game you're playing.

And saying you want to lead a high-performing team is an idea that's easy to agree with intellectually but hard to commit to in reality.

Here are 8 questions I use with CEOs I coach to test for the truth:

Are you willing to set and enforce a high bar—even when it makes you unpopular?

High standards aren't about perfection—they're about progression. The moment you accept mediocrity is the moment you guarantee it.

Your team is watching. They notice: