They understand when employees lose, customers lose even more.
There are many great leaders out there. We all know the Richard Branson types, but what about the everyday leader? What does a normal leader who is not famous do?
I have worked with many exceptional leaders over the years and I’m sure you have too. So I don’t forget, I study and write down what these incredible leaders do. The key linkage between the qualities these leaders have is that they inspire people to do their best work.
As a leader myself, here are the qualities I admire in a leader that is worth cultivating even if you don’t have a leadership title. (Any of us can be a leader based on the way we choose to act.)
They are humble
A leader that thinks they’re all that and talks themselves up is exhausting to work for. It’s their show and it feels like there is nothing in it for you.
Incredible leaders think less of themselves and understand it’s the combined effort of everybody that leads to the outcome.
You can be a crash-hot leader with the sharpest suit in town, but if the other hundred people you manage are uninspired by you and your big ego, no one is going to put their best foot forward. All you’re left with is a leader and a team who are inefficient.
People do their best work when their leader is humble.
They see their career experience as a partial solution to every problem
If you’re using your career experience as justification as to why you have the answer and best approach to every problem, please stop.
Your career experience is nice, although it’s still a very limited perspective. What worked in 1994 in a country half the size as the one you’re working in may have zero relevance.
Your career experience is not a replacement for human thinking that can solve any problem when nurtured and combined with other people’s thoughts.
They are open-minded
Being open to every solution despite whether it’s the right one is a game-changer. The best solutions to the toughest problems that haven’t been solved yet are not going to be found in obvious places that other leaders have already looked at.
Open-mindedness is a tool. An open mind is one that can hear an idea and not judge it right away. Ideas need time to settle and be fleshed out. A good leader knows how to be open-minded and consider all options from the team.
They empower their team to make decisions
Ever worked in a team where you have to ask permission for every decision you want to make? It’s a slow-moving Titanic ship, isn’t it? You can’t even choose the font on the PowerPoint deck because you’re not qualified.
An incredible leader lets the team make most of the decisions because they hired brilliant people they trust to do so.
If you have to make every decision, then what’s the point of having a team? You may as well sack everybody and do everything yourself, eventually burning out and blaming past leaders who hired the people in your team.
A team can make decisions without their leader.
They make time for family
A leader is not weak for taking time off or going home early to look after a sick child. The number of hours you work is not a badge of honour. No one is going to be standing over your grave when you’re dead going “Damn Johnny worked those epic 80-hour weeks. He’s a hero!”
Your family needs your time just as much as your company does.
Time with family is time to reset. During those in-between moments when you’re driving the kids to school or watering your grandparent’s pot plants while they’re in Italy, your mind is letting the problems from work simmer and form connections.
Before you know it, time away from work with your family turns into that lightbulb moment where you come to a realization you could never have had at work, stuck in the problem.
Incredible leaders make time for family and use it to let problems simmer.
They encourage your side-hustles
An incredible leader once let me work fewer hours so I could write my first eBook. It might seem like a dumb decision. To me, it was an obsession. If I wasn’t given the time to write the eBook I felt could inspire lots of people, I would have found another way to do it.
What you learn in your side-hustle translates back to your work. A former colleague of mine runs a website business on the side and he uses the lessons from the day-to-day operations as strategies in his 9–5 where he manages a team of software developers.
My side-hustle of writing taught me to communicate, inspire, be disciplined, show up for a long time and lead people through the internet.
Incredible leaders understand the value of side-hustles and help you enable them using their creativity.
They don’t use a meeting to solve every problem
Too many meetings is costly and it often doesn’t solve anything. Often a problem can be solved by picking up the phone or going to someone’s desk and having an open conversation.
In the last meeting you were in, how many of the meeting participants really needed to be there or contributed anything? Probably not many. How many recurring meetings are required every week for eternity? Very few.
Incredible leaders encourage fewer meetings and more time for thinking and problem solving that adds value.
They talk less
A leader’s voice is not the greatest thing to happen since the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Incredible leaders know this and that’s why they talk less.
They listen to what you have to say and don’t cut you off. They understand that the whole story is needed and interruptions are unhelpful. They also know that they may have nothing helpful to say. Sometimes the best answer is “I don’t know how to help. Let me think about what we can do and discuss it with other leaders who are smarter than me.”
Incredible leaders talk less so they can stop thinking about what they’re going to say next and hear what you have to say.
Incredible leaders talk less so they can listen more.
They don’t care what time you finish and start work
The number of hours you work doesn’t equate to outcomes. Incredible leaders don’t care what hours you work as long as you don’t take the piss and respect the flexibility you’ve been given.
They focus on the people who touch the customer
If a leader runs a business that treats a customer really well and treats its employees like garbage, the outcome is the same.
Employees are the voice of the customer; they work for the customer; they build products for the customer; they take the customer’s phone calls.
Now imagine an angry employee who hates their leader and the company they work for. How well does that person treat the customer? The answer might surprise you. They treat them poorly, or perhaps nicely but with very little empathy for the customer — less empathy than a competitor says.
Customer-centricity can feel fake when the culture of a company is toxic or unsupportive of its people. When employees lose, customers lose too. People make a business great and create experiences that surprise and delight customers and generate repeat business.
Incredible leaders are focused on their people and the customer, not just the customer in isolation.
They enjoy seeing you win and it brings them joy
I had lunch with a leader who used to manage me at my 9–5 job. The look on their face when I explained how much fulfilment writing and my current career gives me made them smile. They were so happy to see me win.
Incredible leaders love seeing you win. It’s why they come to work. It’s their career mission.
They have a trust-first mindset
No matter what happens in your career, they always start from a place of trust. And even if you are led down the wrong path and do something you regret, they give out second chances like they’re the norm.
They don’t let one action ruin your entire career and they see a tiny bit of themselves in every mistake you make.
They trust you to do the right thing and expect nothing in return. They trust you because that’s where relationships and human connections are built.
They tell stories to encourage a change in thinking
It’s fun to chew the fat. Incredible leaders tell you stories from their career and people that inspired them.
At their core, they tell stories to supplement and keep your thinking open. They encourage you to take a different view and use a story as evidence you might want to consider.
They wish you well when you move on and stay in touch
What happens when you want to move on, and the years that follow that decision is the true test of a leader. Are they happy to see you go to a competitor? Do they enjoy seeing you become a leader yourself? Will they stay in touch for years to come?
This is the real differentiator. Only select-few leaders actually stay in touch and want to know how you’re going many years later. These are the leaders you remember for the rest of your life. These are the leaders whose funerals you attend one day when they’re gone and shed a tear for because of what they taught you.
Their legacy as a leader far outweighs any one act they did in their career. These leaders make you emotional and remind you of why you do what you do. The word ‘incredible’ is not enough to describe them. Words can’t describe them.
These are the qualities of incredible leaders who inspire us to do our best work. There is nothing stopping you from becoming a leader and being inspired by these qualities.
Leadership has nothing to do with hierarchy. You’re not given a leadership role; you self-select. Leadership is setting the right example through the qualities you choose to adopt and practice every day in your career.
You can be a leader starting right now when you inspire people to do their best work.
If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net
They understand when employees lose, customers lose even more.
There are many great leaders out there. We all know the Richard Branson types, but what about the everyday leader? What does a normal leader who is not famous do?
I have worked with many exceptional leaders over the years and I’m sure you have too. So I don’t forget, I study and write down what these incredible leaders do. The key linkage between the qualities these leaders have is that they inspire people to do their best work.
As a leader myself, here are the qualities I admire in a leader that is worth cultivating even if you don’t have a leadership title. (Any of us can be a leader based on the way we choose to act.)
They are humble
A leader that thinks they’re all that and talks themselves up is exhausting to work for. It’s their show and it feels like there is nothing in it for you.
Incredible leaders think less of themselves and understand it’s the combined effort of everybody that leads to the outcome.
You can be a crash-hot leader with the sharpest suit in town, but if the other hundred people you manage are uninspired by you and your big ego, no one is going to put their best foot forward. All you’re left with is a leader and a team who are inefficient.
People do their best work when their leader is humble.
They see their career experience as a partial solution to every problem
If you’re using your career experience as justification as to why you have the answer and best approach to every problem, please stop.
Your career experience is nice, although it’s still a very limited perspective. What worked in 1994 in a country half the size as the one you’re working in may have zero relevance.
Your career experience is not a replacement for human thinking that can solve any problem when nurtured and combined with other people’s thoughts.
They are open-minded
Being open to every solution despite whether it’s the right one is a game-changer. The best solutions to the toughest problems that haven’t been solved yet are not going to be found in obvious places that other leaders have already looked at.
Open-mindedness is a tool. An open mind is one that can hear an idea and not judge it right away. Ideas need time to settle and be fleshed out. A good leader knows how to be open-minded and consider all options from the team.
They empower their team to make decisions
Ever worked in a team where you have to ask permission for every decision you want to make? It’s a slow-moving Titanic ship, isn’t it? You can’t even choose the font on the PowerPoint deck because you’re not qualified.
An incredible leader lets the team make most of the decisions because they hired brilliant people they trust to do so.
If you have to make every decision, then what’s the point of having a team? You may as well sack everybody and do everything yourself, eventually burning out and blaming past leaders who hired the people in your team.
A team can make decisions without their leader.
They make time for family
A leader is not weak for taking time off or going home early to look after a sick child. The number of hours you work is not a badge of honour. No one is going to be standing over your grave when you’re dead going “Damn Johnny worked those epic 80-hour weeks. He’s a hero!”
Your family needs your time just as much as your company does.
Time with family is time to reset. During those in-between moments when you’re driving the kids to school or watering your grandparent’s pot plants while they’re in Italy, your mind is letting the problems from work simmer and form connections.
Before you know it, time away from work with your family turns into that lightbulb moment where you come to a realization you could never have had at work, stuck in the problem.
Incredible leaders make time for family and use it to let problems simmer.
They encourage your side-hustles
An incredible leader once let me work fewer hours so I could write my first eBook. It might seem like a dumb decision. To me, it was an obsession. If I wasn’t given the time to write the eBook I felt could inspire lots of people, I would have found another way to do it.
What you learn in your side-hustle translates back to your work. A former colleague of mine runs a website business on the side and he uses the lessons from the day-to-day operations as strategies in his 9–5 where he manages a team of software developers.
My side-hustle of writing taught me to communicate, inspire, be disciplined, show up for a long time and lead people through the internet.
Incredible leaders understand the value of side-hustles and help you enable them using their creativity.
They don’t use a meeting to solve every problem
Too many meetings is costly and it often doesn’t solve anything. Often a problem can be solved by picking up the phone or going to someone’s desk and having an open conversation.
In the last meeting you were in, how many of the meeting participants really needed to be there or contributed anything? Probably not many. How many recurring meetings are required every week for eternity? Very few.
Incredible leaders encourage fewer meetings and more time for thinking and problem solving that adds value.
They talk less
A leader’s voice is not the greatest thing to happen since the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Incredible leaders know this and that’s why they talk less.
They listen to what you have to say and don’t cut you off. They understand that the whole story is needed and interruptions are unhelpful. They also know that they may have nothing helpful to say. Sometimes the best answer is “I don’t know how to help. Let me think about what we can do and discuss it with other leaders who are smarter than me.”
Incredible leaders talk less so they can stop thinking about what they’re going to say next and hear what you have to say.
Incredible leaders talk less so they can listen more.
They don’t care what time you finish and start work
The number of hours you work doesn’t equate to outcomes. Incredible leaders don’t care what hours you work as long as you don’t take the piss and respect the flexibility you’ve been given.
They focus on the people who touch the customer
If a leader runs a business that treats a customer really well and treats its employees like garbage, the outcome is the same.
Employees are the voice of the customer; they work for the customer; they build products for the customer; they take the customer’s phone calls.
Now imagine an angry employee who hates their leader and the company they work for. How well does that person treat the customer? The answer might surprise you. They treat them poorly, or perhaps nicely but with very little empathy for the customer — less empathy than a competitor says.
Customer-centricity can feel fake when the culture of a company is toxic or unsupportive of its people. When employees lose, customers lose too. People make a business great and create experiences that surprise and delight customers and generate repeat business.
Incredible leaders are focused on their people and the customer, not just the customer in isolation.
They enjoy seeing you win and it brings them joy
I had lunch with a leader who used to manage me at my 9–5 job. The look on their face when I explained how much fulfilment writing and my current career gives me made them smile. They were so happy to see me win.
Incredible leaders love seeing you win. It’s why they come to work. It’s their career mission.
They have a trust-first mindset
No matter what happens in your career, they always start from a place of trust. And even if you are led down the wrong path and do something you regret, they give out second chances like they’re the norm.
They don’t let one action ruin your entire career and they see a tiny bit of themselves in every mistake you make.
They trust you to do the right thing and expect nothing in return. They trust you because that’s where relationships and human connections are built.
They tell stories to encourage a change in thinking
It’s fun to chew the fat. Incredible leaders tell you stories from their career and people that inspired them.
At their core, they tell stories to supplement and keep your thinking open. They encourage you to take a different view and use a story as evidence you might want to consider.
They wish you well when you move on and stay in touch
What happens when you want to move on, and the years that follow that decision is the true test of a leader. Are they happy to see you go to a competitor? Do they enjoy seeing you become a leader yourself? Will they stay in touch for years to come?
This is the real differentiator. Only select-few leaders actually stay in touch and want to know how you’re going many years later. These are the leaders you remember for the rest of your life. These are the leaders whose funerals you attend one day when they’re gone and shed a tear for because of what they taught you.
Their legacy as a leader far outweighs any one act they did in their career. These leaders make you emotional and remind you of why you do what you do. The word ‘incredible’ is not enough to describe them. Words can’t describe them.
These are the qualities of incredible leaders who inspire us to do our best work. There is nothing stopping you from becoming a leader and being inspired by these qualities.
Leadership has nothing to do with hierarchy. You’re not given a leadership role; you self-select. Leadership is setting the right example through the qualities you choose to adopt and practice every day in your career.
You can be a leader starting right now when you inspire people to do their best work.
