Leadership in Hospitality Series VII: Great Leaders Create Opportunities for Indiosycratic Excellence Over Average

As I continue this Leadership in Hospitality series, I find myself repeatedly drawn to the insights of Marcus Buckingham. His approach to leadership and performance remains both practical and inspiring to me—and hopefully for you as well. In this installment, I want to highlight a short Instagram video that speaks directly to our industry. In it, Buckingham discusses what makes people truly great at their jobs, and his message feels especially relevant to those of us working in golf and hospitality.

Watch the video here: “You’ve Been Lied to About What Makes People Great at Their Jobs” by Marcus Buckingham

The video is packed with powerful takeaways, but what struck me most was how Buckingham emphasizes that excellence in any job isn’t about rigid conformity—it’s about finding personal meaning in the work. Here’s a key excerpt:

“Study people who are really good at what they do. First, at some point, they’ll say they love what they do. And second, what they love is never the same thing.

Take eight housekeepers at Disney World. One of them says, ‘You know what I love? I love vacuuming myself out of the room. It’s the last thing I do in every room. I love making lines in the carpet.’

Another chimes in, ‘The last thing I do is lie on the bed and turn on the ceiling fan—because that’s the first thing a guest does after a long day at the parks. I like to see the room from the guest’s perspective.’

Someone else might say, ‘But what about the SOPs from Disney that say “Thou shalt not”?’ And she replies, ‘I don’t care. That’s what I do.’

Another adds, ‘I make a show for my guests. I take Mickey and Minnie and arrange them in a scene on the bed for the kids, so they have a surprise when they get back from the parks.’

Even though there are rules saying “thou shalt not,” they do it anyway.

Listen to successful people in any job, and you’ll find they each discover something they love—something different. Which leads to one powerful conclusion:

Average in any job is homogeneous. Excellence in any job is idiosyncratic.

So if you’re building competency models for leaders, be careful. Because if you look closely at the very best leaders, you’ll see just how different they are.”

Takeaways and application – Consider yourself, your team and/or your teammates at your facility:

• Those who are great or at least successful team members, including hopefully you, should be able to talk about “what they love about what they do” (in other words, what motivates them, gets them out of bed to go to the job). Question? Could you talk about that if someone asked you that right now?
• If we did ask you, and your teammates, chances are very high the things each of you love or love to do, would not be the same and/or the tactics would not be the same. Buckingham says, “It’s never the same.” (Interesting, right?)

Let’s do a little self-reflection here:

• What do you do that makes you love your job at the Club? Do you:
  • “Make lines” with the vacuum? Maybe not, but is that in how you arrange the golf shop, set up the carts for the event with detailed precision, how you set up the range? (Think about it.)
  • “Lie down on the bed, or in the tub” so you can see what the guest (member) sees? Maybe not, but maybe you “secret shop” the bag drop in some way, or try different ways to see what the members or guests see in the bathrooms, the locker rooms or in the golf carts.
  • “Make a show” for guests (members)?
  • Experiences, curated by an intentional leader, can be the stuff that moves a team member from a “reactive, affected and impacted” team member to a “responsive, effective and impactful” team member.
• More thought cues for us:
  • When Buckingham shared the story of the staffer who laid down on the bed, looked at the ceiling fan, or sat in the bathtub so they could “see the room from the guest perspective” what did you think about?
    • What is the application for you as a golf professional, a leader of a team of professionals and/or as a club manager?
  • Similarly, in the story about “creating the show” with the stuffed animals, what did you think about? How does that possibly apply to what we are doing for our customers or members as PGA professionals?
    • How might we help them apply this as leaders at their facilities, with their teams, in creating consistently high level experiences for their guests/members?
  • Average is homogenous…excellence is idiosyncratic. What was your response to that statement at first? What about after you thought more about it in the fuller context?
    • How about the “thou shalt not” references?
  • What is different about your role as a PGA professional and your specific role/classification (and your “just cause”) vs perhaps cleaning Disney hotel rooms? (Do you find it amazing that someone could love their cleaning job like many of us love our roles as a PGA professional? I do and it makes me just that much more grateful.)
• Other takeaways not shared, but implied by Marcus Buckingham
  • Outcomes are still in place – Disney hotel rooms are the context – must be very clean, able to be inspected by management, must be done efficiently
  • At our facilities, outcomes are still in place:
    • Outcome: The carts should be clean, correctly stocked/set up and staged in an orderly fashion, well-spaced fashion for the guests, members or customers. How you get there can be different and can be inspiring if you want it to be, or if you, as a leader, will let it be.
    • There are so many other examples of outcomes that we desire, expect…but there is also room for idiosyncratic excellence to develop and show itself in your work, my work and everyone else in our industry.

To close, it would seem an appropriately thought provoking question for each of us, as individual team members, as leaders and as golf professionals, might be something like: “Knowing that outcomes of excellence are still in place, still required, etc. for us to deliver for our club/facility, for our employer and for our customers: How can EACH OF US continue to grow our idiosyncratic level of excellence while at the same time growing our contribution to the overall team’s level of excellence for the remainder of the 2025 fiscal year?”

What a great call to action. And for leaders, what an opportunity to work on developing an open, encouraging workplace where those we lead, those on the front lines of the customer and/or member experience can be motivated and inspired by their own idiosyncratic excellence. Not hemming them in, but setting them up for greater success. As always, I know you are busy, but if these thoughts from Marcus Buckingham gave you a different perspective, I would love to connect with you to learn more about it. Further, I would enjoy connecting with you when you have time to talk about the context of your situation and how we can work together to help you apply these principles in your career in a win-win way at your facility. Check out my calendar booking link below to find a time that works for you.