After talking with hundreds of people about their experiences with management and leaders throughout their careers, its evident that great leaders are hard to come by.  It’s also clear they hone their leadership craft by relentlessly pursuing their end goals every single day.

If your leader does these 10 things, consider yourself pretty lucky:

They stay later than you

 Your leader is the last person to leave because they understand their actions speak louder than their words.

They put your needs before their own

 They know your in-the-office and out-of-office needs, and do everything they can to help you meet those needs. They put Simon Sinek’s Leaders Eat Last into action.

 They ask for your advice

They trust you. They recognize you’re a valuable resource to solve problems and involve you in making impactful decisions. When they make a choice not to use your advice, they communicate the reason why.

 They ask for your advice

They trust you. They recognize you’re a valuable resource to solve problems and involve you in making impactful decisions. When they make a choice not to use your advice, they communicate the reason why.

They inspire you to achieve

There is nothing worse than showing up for work every day just to punch the time clock. Life is too short to be mediocre. Your leader challenges you and gives you the freedom/tools/resources to achieve things that you never thought possible.

 They motivate you beyond money

It’s easy to throw money at people to motivate them, but your leader knows what make you tick beyond the almighty dollar. It’s nice to receive a little something extra, but when the novelty of money wears off, motivation has to be stirred in other places. They have observed or asked what motivates you and then put these things into action.

They hold you accountable

 Most people don’t like to be held accountable, but it’s a requirement in order to facilitate mutual respect. Your leader provides clear and consistent measurements for accountability, and you secretly like it!

They ask for more than you think you’re capable of

People won’t typically stretch themselves to the point of being uncomfortable. We rarely stretch ourselves beyond that, because of a perceived limit. Your leader believes in your ability and challenges you to go far outside of your comfort zone.

 They have a sense of humor

Your leader knows work is serious business, but they typically don’t go more than a day without laughing at something funny. A lot of times they aren’t the ones being funny, but they embrace a culture that makes time for a good laugh.

They are generous

It’s easy for a wealthy person to be generous with money, but harder for them to be generous with their time. Your leader shows his generosity with with their most limited resource, TIME.

My hope is that every person gets the opportunity to have a great leader at some point in their professional career because the impact is so great its hard to measure.

Getting Leadership Ready. LearnLoft’s out of the box training approach to helping organizations develop their young professionals to be better and more proactive leaders. Find out more here