Your boss says the company he founded -- the baby he's raised all these years -- is the best small company to work for in Washington.

He also has something else to tell you: He's an excellent leader, serving as a role model to you, caring about your life and enabling you to reach your career goals.

Sound too good to be true? Ready to chalk up your boss's comments to Mr. Ego and his good friend Hubris? Not so fast. You haven't met Mike Sotelo, president of Seattle-based Approach Management Services, a private company focused on managing workers' compensation claims. Sotelo, it turns out, is right about his 16-year-old company being the best small company to work for in the state. He also happens to be right when he rates his leadership abilities as excellent because that's how his employees see him as well.

Lee Smith, president of CoachWorks International Inc. and a judge for Washington CEO Magazine's Best Companies competition, says Approach Management Services' low employee turnover and plentiful training opportunities were among the forces that catapulted it to the top of the small-company category.

Another of those forces was Sotelo. "He gave himself a perfect score (5.0 for leadership)," Smith says. And while other small-company CEOs did the same, "many of them didn't have the employee numbers that matched it." Twenty-three of Approach Management's 30 employees gave Sotelo a 4.9 out of 5.0, Smith says, and "there were a lot of 5.0s on this one."

The 52-year-old Sotelo credits his employees with why he and his company get the highest of marks. He believes in them, and they believe in him, and he wants them to succeed because he knows their success will reflect on him. And he's got a little advice for other company leaders: Let those employees who "peer into the boardroom" inside so they can help manage the company with great ideas you never thought of. "They'd blow their minds," Sotelo says.

Sotelo's path to Approach Management Services started 24 years ago when he was hired as a carpenter by W.G. Clark Construction Co., a commercial contractor. Eventually, he became W.G. Clark's safety director, and in 1992, struck out on his own to start Approach Management Services. It was a smart business move, because the demand for what Approach Management does is high. Workers' compensation claims loom ever larger for employers, Sotelo says, and while premiums have stayed relatively flat over the past couple of years, they've historically seen price spikes as high as 28 percent. Premiums are based on the number and severity of employment-related injuries, so premiums skyrocket when injury rates increase and employees have to take time off to recover.

With offices in Seattle and Olympia, Approach Management Services works to keep premiums down by helping workers get back on the job as soon as possible (the company has nurses and counselors who work with the medical community to help employees regain their health); helping workers who can't return to their original jobs develop new skills; and by obtaining refunds for overpaid premiums. Most employers for which Approach Management oversees claims buy insurance from the state (Washington doesn't allow private workers' compensation insurance). Employers can obtain a refund of part of their annual insurance premium by reducing the employee injury rate and getting injured employees back to work. Approach Management serves as a third-party administrator between employers and the state, collecting a percentage of the amount refunded. "It's a win-win scenario," Sotelo says. The company's clients include Turner Construction Co., one of the largest construction management companies in the U.S.; Nintendo of America Inc., Tacoma Goodwill, Oak Harbor Freight Lines Inc. and Trident Seafoods. Just last year, Approach Management trained more than 3,500 employees in preventing injuries on the job.