Whether you’re a CEO, a vice president, a manager, or an individual contributor, true leadership consists of empowering, encouraging, and inspiring others to reach their full potential. Most of the time, when someone knows that you trust them and value them, they will go out of their way to fulfill that belief. They will lie awake in bed in the middle of the night mulling over technical problems. They will get back online after dinner to add the finishing touches to a project. I know, because I’ve done this myself. This is not motivation to do the bare minimum out of fear; this is the deeply engaged flow of a person who has been fully empowered and entrusted to own a problem and to do the right thing.
