Great managers are hard to find. Great managers have a true gift and a passion for getting the most out of people. Great managers possess a unique ability that is not in everyone. Having worked with hundreds of managers over the years, I now see clearly the ones who truly want to be great managers and the ones who are doing it for other reasons, e.g., ego, advancement, having nowhere else to go.

I’ve noticed a pattern this year across several good teams that have truly become great teams. Conversely, there are other teams that just remain mediocre. Why is that? It all comes down to having a great Integrator in place who owns their role.

In any entrepreneurial organization, two essential seats are the Visionary and the Integrator™. A great Visionary is driven by creativity and passion, which fuels his or her vision for the company. A great Integrator takes that vision and makes it happen throughout the organization. Without these two leaders working side by side, your company will never see the success it’s capable of achieving.

In the last quarterly session with a client, the team reported record financials in the last 90 days. They exceeded their revenue and profit targets, and they completed over 90 percent of their rocks. By all estimations, they had every reason to celebrate. But when it came time to grade the quarter, they gave it a C+ / B–. Surprised by the low grade, I asked them to explore this a bit. What they discovered has the potential to change their company for years.

It is always a challenge to keep individuals and organizations focused, but that’s what great leaders do. Distractions abound, but great leaders have an internal compass that keeps them from drifting off course. Two things set your bearings – your why and your what. For companies implementing the Entrepreneurial Operating System^®, those two things combine to form your Core Focus™. Once you define your Core Focus, you’ll be less likely to be distracted by “shiny stuff.”

One of the core EOS^® tools for helping a leader determine whether someone is in the right seat is GWC™, which stands for Get it, Want it, and Capacity. When evaluating whether someone GWC’s their job, you must ask three questions – Do they Get it? Do they Want it? Do they have the Capacity to do it? – and answer either "Yes" or "No" to each question. "Maybe" is not an option.

If any one of the three answers is "No,” then that person is in the wrong seat. It’s a very simple and powerful exercise, but when leaders begin to use this tool, they sometimes experience confusion between “Get it” and “Capacity.” Here’s the difference.