We’ve covered imagining what others don’t and managing stress and time as foundational cornerstones of leadership. Another important element of transformational leadership is to inspire everyone to get involved. Start encouraging folks to achieve more than what’s thought possible by setting high and realistic standards and through ongoing discussions to keep those standards on everyone’s radar. Make it your mission to inspire folks to question their own commonly held assumptions; think for themselves; reframe problems; and approach matters in innovative, collaborative ways. Experiment with paying focused attention to people’s personal needs for achievement and development. Take responsibility when things go wrong. When great things happen, go ahead and give others the credit. You’ll be glad you did.

Act as a caring, compassionate, and empathetic mentor. Companies that have the highest-ranking workforce satisfaction ratings have top leaders who listen and work on resolving matters that cause employee stress and unhappiness. As transformational leaders, we can achieve more meaningful outcomes by thinking, speaking, and acting from the heart to inspire and encourage results.