Two signs of a great leader

I spent the afternoon with a leader from another real estate organisation the other day. We were both working on applications for the same industry awards program.

The first sign of a great leader: she shared her knowledge. Even though our agencies are in competition with each other at times, this leader shared with me insight on what had helped them be successful in these awards programs previously – a real help given that it was our first time entering.

The second sign of a great leader: she made someone else feel special. During our afternoon chat, I mentioned that our office junior had spent considerable time working on her own application in the category of “support person of the year”. Not only did this leader take this knowledge in, but when she saw our office junior a few days later she remembered the conversation and asked her how she’d gone with her submission and spent a few minutes talking with her. I don’t know if she noticed, but my office junior was not so secretly chuffed that this leader had taken the time to make her feel important and valued.

I’m about to send a copy of this blog post to this leader so that she knows it’s her I’m talking about because my bet is, she’s such a great leader and this generosity of spirit comes so naturally to her, that she won’t have even registered that she did something really special that day.

Are you a great leader?

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I Can do it Anyone Can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started her first business at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Now Kirsty does lots of fun things which you can read about here. Her favourite current projects are Elephant Property, a boutique property management agency, Baby Teresa, a baby clothing line that donates an outfit to a baby in need for each one they sell andReallySold, which helps real estate agents stop writing boring, uninteresting ads.