“The more real and vulnerable leaders are about what they see, the changes they want to make and the challenges they face, the more people will identify themselves with the leader and the more willing they will be to adopt change,” she said.
 
Leaders also must foster a genuine commitment to develop others.

“[This is] internally creating the environment where people can grow, so there’s the whole well-being [aspect] rather than buying expertise [or just] using people for their experience and expertise,” she said.

Further, in the current economic environment, it’s commonplace for employees to work harder and longer hours than they normally would, and leaders can help make it more meaningful.

“If they’re working hard, they might as well have it make a bigger difference [than] just producing more money and making people rich,” she said. “It’s not just enough to be [concerned] about the stakeholders and being profitable and making the bottom line bigger — that’s just the ticket to the dance. It’s bigger than that — caring about the environment, having a larger purpose so the company makes a difference.”