What do outstanding teachers have in common?

To be considered an "outstanding teacher," it is first and foremost important to be an outstanding learner. As teachers often work to improve their craft 10, 20, 30, or 40 years, I believe the single most important quality is to be able to learn from their students, and colleagues. Learn and be adaptive. Learn what works, learn what doesn't work, and most importantly be conscious of these issues, adapt to them, and apply corrections. Constantly have the goal of improving communication, while improving your ability to be capable of noticing the change taking place within your students. Although there are literally hundreds of specific qualities that could be listed as positive attributes of an outstanding teacher, I believe there is one more general quality they all share. This quality is the ability to ask themselves "How do my students learn," rather than simply "How do I become a better teacher." Ultimately what this means is that every successful teacher is capable of focusing on the change that is (or isn't) taking place within their students during the learning process. It is important to be able to flip this teacher-student equation inside out, and be adaptive to the way students learn, while learning to create positive change within a student. Ultimately, no two days a teacher goes to school will ever be the exact same, and the ability to be adaptive to every unique situation will put a teacher in the tremendous situation of helping their students learn and progress.