What The Best Bosses Do

Let's talk now about what the best bosses do, and let's talk about the transformational leader. A transformational leader is one who excites and inspires people to perform far beyond their own expectations of themselves. Transformational leaders practice certain behaviors that cause their people to feel stronger and happier and more confident and more committed. The first of these behaviors practiced by top leaders is the delegation of high levels of responsibility for results. Transformational leaders pick the right people, match them to the right jobs, achieve mutual clarity on the desired results, and then they get out of the way and leave the individual with maximum freedom to perform. Lao Tse, the great Chinese philosopher, had this idea when he a leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, we did this ourselves. In a recent study, thousands of people were asked to describe their best bosses. Over and over, the respondents said things like, I hardly saw him, or he left me alone, or he gave me complete freedom to do the job. There is something liberating and empowering to know that you've been entrusted with a major responsibility and that you've been given the freedom to fulfill it. When the right person has been matched with the right job, the conditions for exceptional performance have been created. Another behavior of transformational leaders is their confident attitude of positive expectations. They radiate a belief in themselves and in the ability of their subordinates to succeed. They know that the leader sets the psychological tone for the whole organization, so they consciously project a positive attitude. No matter how distressing the external situation might appear, they are in complete control of themselves, their emotions. So you become a transformational leader by giving responsibility to other people to do the job and then expressing high positive expectations that they can and will do the job in an excellent fashion. This is the fastest of all ways to liberate human potential.