"He's an egomaniac with an inferiority complex" is what Susan had to say about her boss. "He's bright, hardworking, and ambitious," she said, "but very hard to get along with. Whenever you're around him, somehow you feel inferior. On a bad day, he can make you feel useless." Think this is good for business development?

Effective and more acceptable ways exist to make yourself feel good without making employees feel bad. The whole work environment and business development will improve, too.

Leaders have faith in themselves for business development.

When leaders believe in themselves, they feel secure. This leader will know what they think, and act on what they know. If they don't know something, they admit it - there's no need to fake anything.

Nobody feels 100 percent secure 100 percent of the time. For the majority of leaders, these doubts fade away quickly. For people like Susan's boss, such doubts affect everyone with whom he comes into contact and adversely affects business development. He feels he must cut people down to his size; otherwise he might be overwhelmed. He won't delegate, lest others get more credit than he. People with so little faith in themselves make very poor "leaders."

To prevent this from happening to you, as a leader, do a personal audit of your strengths and weaknesses. Listen carefully to what you hear. Build on your strengths and take definite steps to improve your weaknesses. Then do it again at regular intervals to monitor your progress. Great leaders continue to have faith in themselves. If these leaders don't, why should anyone else?

Leaders have hope in the future for business development.

What a leader thinks about the future determines how they act today towards business development. A leader believing that the future can improve will do things to make it happen. A leader believing that nothing can improve will do nothing to change it.

Leaders trust in others for business development.

People like Susan's "leader" never developed a fundamental trust in others. Consequently, they have to do it alone, without depending on anyone else. This no longer works in a rapidly changing business world interested in business development. Actually, it never works - even the Lone Ranger had a Tonto.

One of the Golden Management Rules of this decade is that people are an organization's greatest resource for business development. It naturally follows that trust in people is at the heart of good business.

A leader wanting to improve their trust ratio selects something to delegate, chooses someone to delegate it to, gives them all the information they need to do the job, and coaches them, when needed, to succeed. Business development depends on this type of leader.

These three strategies - faith, hope, and trust - are at the heart of both good personal and business development relationships. In life and in work, a great leader doesn't have to make themselves out to be so big, because they're not that small in the first place.