1. Leadership
It is hard to find anyone who does not dream of being a great leader.
Whether you consider a coach working with a girl in Little League, a
prosecuting attorney triple-checking each detail of a case to ensure a
conviction, or an Oscar-winning director reviewing every beat of a
screenplay to ensure she can provide guidance toward the best possible
production, the dream of excellence in leadership remains, underlying every
move. For many, though, the dream is no more than a vain, wispy fantasy
that will never come true.
What is the difference between a great leader and a vain daydreamer? What
one single element turns a mediocre “anybody” into an outstanding success?
Is there a secret that changes a plodding putz into a power player?
Yes, of course there is. A combination of commitment, planning, motivation,
dignity, and humility working together toward clear and well understood
goals.
Many people confuse leadership with bullying. It is vital to realize that there
is a world of difference. Anyone with power can swing their weight. Anyone
with an idea can be demanding and officious. A leader, however, serves as a
moral north-star and as a role model, as well as providing vision, guidance,
and oversight. A great leader demonstrates dignity, compassion,
respectfulness, and wisdom, as well as giving orders and expecting
obedience. It is amazing how few people understand that. The illusion that
leadership is about power and punishment, clout and command, the weak
and the strong, leads to vast amounts of misery, and terrible wasted effort
and failed hopes and plans.
The great leader must, first and foremost, give himself or herself to the work
at hand. The goal outweighs all else, and the job is the soul of leadership.
Soldiers do not accept an officer’s leadership because of stars and bars on
sleeves and collars: they accept it because they believe, over all, that the
officers of their service put the job first, even at their own expense, and the
soldiers are willing to follow because they, too, value the work that must be
done.
“I lead” isn’t the same as “I demand.” In the difference between these two
phrases you can find the secret power of motivation.

2. A Personal Commitment
I am a good leader. A highly motivated performer and often the core
personality in my social groups, I have excelled in my professional career
and provided direction and guidance in both professional and amateur
forums. When I have a goal I march toward it, quietly and steadily,
regardless of set-backs, regardless of ridicule, regardless of obstacles that
rise up to block my progress – and in many cases, I am able to bring people
with me, and lead them into the work that must be done..
I was not always a capable leader, though: it is a learned skill as much as it
is a talent. Over time, I have had plenty of chances to observe better, more
experienced leaders and learn from them, study the works of the great
leaders of history, and learn leadership through experience.
Breaking down the process of leadership, and the elements that make the
difference between greatness and mediocrity can allow you to learn good
leadership skills, also. What are the distinctive attributes of good leadership?
First, vision: a leader sees goals clearly, and sometimes sees goals no one
else can see. Planning allies with vision: a great leader can formulate a path
to reach a goal – or knows who can. Which brings up the third trait of a great
leader: the ability to recognize and foster talent in others, and trust
subordinates to do their jobs well. That third is sometimes called delegation,
which sounds like “making other people do the dull work,” but at heart,
delegation is a complex and powerful combination of recognition, respect,
and trust.
A Man, A Plan, A Canal...Vision Moves Mountains
From the earliest days of European exploration, there was enormous desire
for a canal to carry ships across the Central American isthmus. Before the
creation of the canal, ships sailing from the Atlantic to the Pacific around the
Americas had no possible route except to pass far south, around Cape Horn,
at the extreme southern tip of Chile.
Governments and merchants alike realized that a canal between oceans,
placed at the narrow neck of the isthmus, would cut over 8,000 miles off of
the trip, and ensure not only safer, cheaper transport, but safer travel. The
journey around the Cape was famously dangerous. Seasonal weather added

3. massive additional difficulty, presenting brutal winter storms and the danger
of ice to the tricky winds and currents the route offered. The savings in time
and money, the increase in possible trade, and the vast improvement in
safety made a canal a much desired goal for centuries.
Over five nations contemplated building a canal. Multiple compromise plans
were put into effect. Then in 1880, the French made an attempt at excavating
a Panamanian Canal. Thousands of lives were lost – many to disease, as
malaria ripped through the labor force. Bad planning on all levels doomed
the attempt.
Only when the U.S. took up the challenge did the plan succeed. The
difference was not a matter of desire, or talent, or intelligence: prior nations
had demonstrated all three. The difference was in vision. From Theodore
Roosevelt at the very top of the command structure, through Joseph Bucklin
Bishop who served as Roosevelt’s organizer, on-site observer, and PR
advocate, to the engineers who dreamed of the ultimate form of the canal
and the methods needed to construct it, there was one driving vision. That
vision was conveyed through all levels of the Army Corps of Engineers, and
showed particularly in the spirit and dedication of the primary commanding
engineers, where there was a firm resolve to see the project through.
No aspect of the process was left to chance, and vision was applied to all
aspects of the process. From the mosquito-abatement program to eliminate
the tropical diseases, including malaria, to the revised plan for a lock-and-
dam structure rather than a sea-level excavation, every aspect of the project
was considered. Rather than simply dreaming of a goal, the men involved
were determined to succeed, and left no element of their process
unexamined or without alternate options.
Their vision powered the entire process – a process that ultimately
demonstrated the finest forms of leadership.
The Roadmap
As we saw in the above, the inspired vision of President Roosevelt, his
advisors, and the engineers in the Army Corp of Engineers was expressed
through precise and well-developed planning. A leader must be a superb

4. planner – or must recognize great plans and great planners and support them
vigorously.
It is vital to realize that both options are signs of good leadership. It is even
more important to understand that a great leader will choose to support the
best plan, even if it is not his or her own. Even if a leader is a brilliant
tactician and strategist with a good plan, if a better plan is put forward from
another source, a leader will choose the optimal option.
What is a “great plan?” One that wins the most necessary victories at the
most endurable cost possible. I have thought about that often over the years
– as a director, a community leader, and a professional manager. Many
leaders make the mistake of pursuing victories at any cost. Yet not all
victories are necessary, and not all costs are acceptable.
Think about the parent who destroys a child’s confidence by demanding
perfect and unending victories – in sports, or academics, or social life. We
have all seen examples of the parent so involved in winning that he or she
loses all sense of whether a victory is really necessary, or if too high a price
is being paid. So many people have been hurt or destroyed to win objectives
that were worth naught in the grand scheme of things. Truly great leaders
have the courage to refuse those goals, and turn away from those victories.
In other words, leaders need not only a practical vision, but a profound
moral vision, and the courage and integrity to pursue that vision.
Trust and Oversight
One of the hardest things for me to master in leadership is the art and
integrity of delegation. Like many highly motivated, capable people, I know
I can do a job, and do it right. I also know by experience that many others
cannot. If I am not constantly aware that leadership is always empowering
other people to do the job, and providing them with what they need to do
that job as well or better than I can, I fall into the old, arrogant trap of the
talented. I push people aside, mutter, “I’ll do it myself,” and find that I am
overworked, underpaid, and leading no one at all; because my subordinates
have all wandered off to do something useful rather than stand around
watching me block them from doing their proper work.

5. Great leaders also find ways to support their workers. A good leader focuses
on bringing out the best in his or her subordinates, bringing out the genius of
those already promoted, and bringing forward and developing those not yet
discovered.
Leaders focus not on doing the job themselves, but in providing the
circumstances and resources to allow their subordinates to do the job
marvelously. In addition, they give themselves to their people, inspiring
them through the trust, enthusiasm, and respect they feel for their own
workers, and the efforts they are willing to make on their behalf.
This does not mean a leader turns a blind eye to bad behavior or bad work –
but a good leader treats these issues as problems to be resolved with as little
pain and as much progress as possible. Rather than demonstrating power and
“making an example” of a poor worker though public humiliation or extreme
punishment, a good leader makes clear to all why a mistake must be
corrected, and proceeds to make that correction without unnecessary malice
or drama. A worker who behaves badly or fails to produce quality work is
moved aside, or dismissed without sentiment or dishonesty, but also without
mean or petty disgrace. A worker who tries hard, but is ill-suited to a
position is placed in a more appropriate posting, or is helped to overcome his
or her disability.
Leaders delegate, they make decisions that allow subordinates to shine, and
they provide oversight and guidance. They trust and admire their people, and
they know, deeply and profoundly, that their people must be able to trust and
admire them in return. Because of this, they leave their own followers
stronger, more capable, and more able to function even without their leader,
than they were before the leader arrived.
The Virtue of a Leader
We have all heard the phrase, “leadership by example.” Many people think
that this is simply a matter of performing a job themselves, so that their
subordinates can then “monkey-see, monkey-do” mimic the leader. This is
seldom the case. Leaders are infrequently trainers, and workers usually learn
their jobs from others – often from peers of the same status or of very close
status. A teacher can be a leader, but a leader need not be a teacher – at least
not in the most literal, practical sense.

6. Leaders are, however, great teachers of virtue, and unlike many a preacher in
a pulpit or philosopher lounging in a café, leaders teach more virtue through
their actions than through their words. A great leader provides the example
of positive attitude, respect, diligent effort, and dedication that will be
mirrored throughout his or her entire command structure.
This example is seen both in ways the leader behaves toward those outside
the organization, and those within. A great leader models honesty, integrity,
and respect even when dealing with opponents. Even more, a leader models
admiration and respect for subordinates.
Yes, some subordinates will fail to return the respect, or match the model
their leader offers. But a leader lacking in integrity and decency will
encourage the same throughout the organization, while a virtuous leader
will, by the very fact of position, be watched and copied.
Never make the mistake of thinking that what you do as a leader is not as
important as what you demand your followers do. We all know the saying,
“do as I say, not as I do.” We all know, also, that the saying has never been
very successful.
A parent can tell a child repeatedly to expel the truth – but if the parent, time
after time lies, the child will learn how little the parent values truth. A
politician can demand justice for all – but it does not take long for a harried
intern to realize that the politician cares little about justice when it results in
little to no votes. A commanding officer in a police force can demand that
his people not take bribes or abuse their authority – but if the officer
regularly accepts little gifts, bullies his own people, and disrespects civilians,
the rest of the department quickly realizes how shallow his commitment to
righteous behavior really is. A dirty leader draws followers into dirtiness,
regardless of what he or she says against it, or what orders are issued to
prevent it.
On the other hand, followers and subordinates take pride and satisfaction in
working under a virtuous leader, and will often go to amazing lengths to
match that virtue. A respectful leader will, by the example of action,
promote respect throughout an organization. A forgiving leader will promote
forgiveness. An honest leader will promote honesty. A leader with a sense of
humor will, by example, encourage their subordinates to laugh. A generous

7. leader will draw their workers into patterns of generosity. A hard working
leader will model good, diligent work.
Even more, a leader of great integrity and character commands respect and
radiates authority. Followers know that their leader takes no shortcuts, and
cheats no one. When the leader works and lives both graciously and
righteously, those who take orders from them recognize that the leader is
deserving of their own respect and cooperation.
It is no accident that even great generals endorse personal virtue as the
greatest command attribute of all. Warriors learn in the heat of combat that
respect and admiration build teams, and that disrespect and revulsion destroy
teams.
Developing Leadership Skills
I never especially wanted to be a leader. In many ways, I feel like leadership
has been thrust upon me, no matter what. I do lead, however, and I am
determined to lead well when I must. As a result, I have got a serious
commitment to learning how to lead well.
The truth is some people will not be great leaders – but almost anyone who
makes the effort can learn to be a fairly good leader. And while some claim,
like Harold S. Geneen in the quote above, that leadership cannot be taught,
learners can identify teachers and role models to pattern themselves after.
Moreover, they can learn the principles of great leadership taught through
the ages by the great leaders and wise men and women of history. To learn,
though, you have to accept that leadership is learnable
Our culture tends to assume that leadership is a magic process. Some folks
think leadership is a matter of talent, something hereditary, something like
blue eyes or freckles that came with you from conception. Others seem to
believe it is a matter of position and power, rather than understanding and
skill: the Authority Fairy, or the High Status Angel comes along, taps a
select few to wear the magic stars and bars, and the rest of us are just out of
luck. Other people think leadership is a matter of respect not for the leader,
but for the title the leader holds: give a person a rank or title, and presto,
they are leaders.

8. The truth is more complex. In great leaders, the person and the authority
merge and improve with time and experience, eventually creating something
greater than either alone. Success in leadership is usually the result of
dedicated work, careful preparation, and most of all, an intense commitment
to learning the job. That means, before anything else, working to understand
the job – and that is a field of study in its own right.
No two leadership positions are identical. Even two leaders heading the
same organization at different times, or in different capacities, experience
different jobs. Learning the nature, demands, and limits of your very own
personal leadership position is the beginning of great leadership. That
learning depends on observational skills and analytical skills, so make sure
first and foremost that you are trained in those areas – in as many ways as
possible. Dedicate yourself to a lifetime of learning; the very act of
educating yourself constantly hones the skills you need to lead. As John F.
Kennedy said, "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."
When you make a habit of learning, that habit carries into your daily
leadership ability. You are better able to determine the issues facing you, to
comprehend the resources available; you will be more deeply aware of the
needs and concerns of your followers. To learn to lead, dedicate yourself to
learning in all ways.
Then, using those learning skills, determine what other skills you personally
need to explore. While no wand or badge of rank can make a leader, many
people are able to learn to be good leaders. When you set out to learn a set of
skills, the best approach is not to go in cold, and reinvent the wheel. It is
better to learn from those who have already found the way. By studying the
record of winners, by learning from their teachings and writings, a
determined student of success can save hours of time and rounds of grief
along the way to excellence and the rewards of accomplishment.
Choose your teachers well. If you want to be the best, emulate the best:
those who are the best not just in worldly ways, but in deeply moral ways.
From this moral integrity comes much of the strength needed to support your
motivation over the long quest for success. It is not enough to want wealth,
or fame, or glory. If these rewards are all you want, your motivation is likely
to be weak and poorly focused. To desire these things with a clear
conscience and a great and noble heart, though, demands more, and in
demanding more, it tightens your vision and intensifies your commitment.

9. It is no accident that wise men and women, great philosophers, and
outstanding saints have served as role models throughout history. Neither is
it unusual that even the integrity of less renowned role models can serve as a
shining beacon to those following in a hero’s footsteps – or that a moral
failure can crush the heart and spirit of those whose model fails along the
way.
You must pick the best models you can find, and you must be prepared to try
to exceed them, not merely match them. This ambition, this commitment to
excel over even your role model can armor you against a role model’s short
comings, making it possible to accept a failure without breaking, or lowering
your own standards or goals. Choose great leaders to imitate, and forgive
their humanity even as you try to improve your own attempts in light of their
errors.
Choosing Your Role Models
So, you know you need role models and teachers along your way to good
leadership skills. How do you choose them, what should you value, and how
should you proceed?
Obviously, when you can you should prefer to choose people you think are
both great humans and brilliant leaders. Most of all, you should pattern
yourself after people whose success and excellence was accomplished as a
result of fortitude in the face of adversity and difficulty. These great guides
can provide you with perspective and proper grounding. How can you not be
inspired by Helen Keller, who not only overcame her blindness and
deafness, but in later years served as a social leader, and a role model to
others – not just the blind and deaf, but the working laborers of her time? Or
Martin Luther King, Jr. whose steady leadership and commitment to non-
violent political action in the face of brutal and deadly opposition was rooted
in his deep faith in the example he found in his religion?
Great individuals like these can not only show us the long, slow, patient
commitment strong leadership demands, but can grant perspective,
reminding us our own fears and pains are no greater than those faced by
thousands, and our own followers neither dramatically better nor worse than
theirs. Great leaders are not given exceptional followers, they are given
ordinary followers they help lead to exceptional performance.

10. Studying these great leaders can also remind us that even the great are
flawed, fearful, sometimes foolish, just as you are, and their followers
contrary, difficult, argumentative, unpredictable and complex as your own.
To learn from their failures and challenges as well as their victories provides
a cautionary lesson, but also reassurance.
Great role models, over their lives, felt fear, joy, hope, despair, anger, loss,
and grief. Many died thinking they had failed. Many died doubting the value
of their own efforts. Still, they persevered, and have since become famous
for the great gifts they gave. How could they give, if they doubted, mourned,
or believed they had failed? What allowed them to continue, when every
thought and feeling indicated that the cause was lost, the goals unattainable?
Motivation: motivation carried them, when feelings and desire could not.
There is a tenacious moral fiber to motivation that carries on with calm,
determined commitment even in the face of complete despair.
Win-Win: Leadership Rewarding Cooperation
Leadership, by definition, is not a solitary endeavor. Leadership goals can
only be reached with the cooperation of others. No matter how much we
love our lone-wolf heroes, or our solitary pioneer individualists, the leader’s
success grows out of communal soil. Leadership can only be considered a
success if it results in many individuals working in synchronized harmony.
How does a good leader develop this ideal state of cooperation? The key to
this little motivational gambit lies in the power of “win-win.”
Rather than imagine leadership as a series of competitive victories against
your own staff, you must realize that your ultimate success is the result of
successful alliances, shared victories, and plentiful rewards for effort and
results. What valuable rewards do you offer the people around you as you
work to accomplish your organization’s goals? How can you make as many
interactions as possible “victories” for your followers, rather than defeats?
What services and benefits do your people need that you can not only
provide, but provide in ways that further your organization’s aims? What
help can you offer that can be turned into not one improved life, but many –
including your own?

11. How does this apply to leadership? It provides the motivation and strong
morale to keep your people passionately committed, proud of their work,
and dedicated to your organization. It also changes your entire focus from
negative forms of discipline, control, and punishment to positive forms of
discipline, willing responsibility, and reward. While some people delight in
competition, few of us delight in conflict or persecution. Learning to think in
terms of providing rewards and increasing justified pride, rather than meting
out punishment and shame lets you perform a sort of mental jiu-jitsu, tossing
your worst instincts on their head, and using the momentum to improve your
situation.
Almost all of us want, and at some time in our lives need, mutual support
and cooperation. Looking out for number one is often a way of thinking that
closes the door to help and hope – and when hope is gone and help is
unobtainable, motivation withers. A good leader realizes that this is true of
staff and employees, as well as it is of anyone else, and uses it to strengthen
the organization. When a leader focuses on helping followers reach a goal in
the comfort of mutual satisfaction, shared respect, and confident
supportiveness, morale is high and motivation becomes easy to maintain.
How do you know you are making progress in your quest for leadership
success? When your people begin to come to you, rather than when, over
and over, you have to go find them. That is not intended to suggest that
anyone should ever stop reaching out – it is a comment on the nature of
leadership. You are succeeding when your workers start seeing you as a
powerful and admired resource, not a dreaded problem.
I have always known when my leadership skills were in tune and in synch
with my community when people start approaching me for advice. I know,
then, that the people around me know I will respect them, listen to them, and
provide them with insights they might have missed, and approaches that will
serve them well. They come to me for leadership, and follow my lead
because they believe it will be to their benefit.
Recognizing Dignity: Yours and Theirs
If you wish to motivate yourself and others, providing strong leadership
through positive encouragement, what one virtue do you need? What
leadership quality other than integrity trumps the rest? Some would say

12. authority: the ability to coerce workers into cooperation, even when they are
reluctant. That, however, is poor leadership, not good leadership. The true
leader has willing followers; only the poor leader drives people from behind,
with a whip.
Coercion is the vice that opposes the best motivating characteristic you can
learn. To coerce a follower, you must first deny both his dignity, and your
own, treating him as a brute to be bullied, and yourself as a lout: graceless
and brutal. Good leaders respect and support a constant state of dignity –
their own, and that of their followers.
“Dignity” is often a misunderstood word. People think it means stuffy,
pompous, and even arrogant. Instead, human dignity is the sense of one’s
own value and worth, and the certainty of others’ worth. Dignity offers three
things: the certain conviction that you are deserving of your own best efforts
– that your goals, dreams, hopes and fears, skills and insights are worthy of
your workers’ attention and respect. Second, dignity dictates that your
workers are likewise worthy of your best efforts – each with gifts to give,
and precious contributions to make, fully deserving of the respect and
admiration of their peers and their superiors. Finally, dignity suggests that, if
the worth of the individuals of an organization is enormous, the worth of that
organization as a living, breathing community is close to infinite.
Dignity allows us to give ourselves fully to our shared goals because in
doing so, we serve both ourselves and others. Think again of the great
dignity of a Helen Keller, or a Martin Luther King: each in different ways
accepted the primary conviction that they and those they led were worthy of
their goals. Helen Keller, in the face of common conviction that her
blindness and deafness made her something less than human, was willing to
believe she was fully human, and capable of becoming an exceptional
human. She accepted the premise of her own worth even when she was not
yet victorious. Accepting that she was worthy from the beginning, she also
accepted that it was worth her effort to become more worthy.
Martin Luther King, in a time when his race was considered inherently
inferior, refused to believe he was less inherently valuable than any other
person. He chose, instead, to recognize that he and his people were as deeply
and profoundly precious and carried as much potential as anyone – and,
from that, he recognized that they were worth the struggle to be given
similar respect and recognition from the world around them. For King, much

13. of this conviction grew out of his belief in God, and his understanding of all
people as God’s equal and beloved children. Others, though, have found
similar conviction regarding the nature of human dignity in other traditions
and philosophies.
The point is that only if you allow yourself to believe in your own worth,
and in the worth of your followers, can you marshal your energy and
resources and lead your teams to success in their goals. It is truth, it is the
leader who already thinks the worst of himself and who fails to believe in
the value of his own subordinates who is least likely to succeed. As cliché as
it seems, in leadership, low self-esteem and lowered expectations lead to
failure.
Humility
It may seem odd to jump from dignity to humility. Again, in our culture
there is a tendency to consider humility a matter of low self-esteem. Humble
is seen as self-hatred.
In fact, it is quite different. Humility is the ability to honestly assess your
organizations’ and your own shortcomings, and equally honestly recognize
that, while perfection is generally out of our reach, improvement is not.
No one ever led their forces to great victory without profound humility.
Humility is the courage and honesty to recognize where you can change for
the better. Without this calm, quiet capacity for precise judgment unclouded
by anger, ego, affection, resentment – and without self-loathing or disrespect
for others – no one can progress.
If low self-esteem cripples many leaders, to an equal degree, unjustifiably
high self-esteem unbalanced by humility cripples others. Consider the many
shallow, vain, immature bosses you have encountered, convinced of their
own preciousness, sullen and useless in their sense of entitlement. These
“leaders” are too proud to improve, because to improve depends on
accepting they were not perfect to begin with.
No one is perfect: not leaders, not followers, and not the communities they
form. The more completely you can get past that, the quicker you can
progress in developing your leadership skills and goals. A long, agonized
struggle with pride and shame makes for good drama, but terrible progress in

14. life. There is almost no single surrender better for your ability than
surrendering your vanity to honest laughter, and getting over it.
By making that choice it becomes possible to weave humility into
leadership, allowing you to change course, give way, praise others, and
recognize better plans than your own. As a humble leader, you realize your
only role is to empower your people to become the very best, rather than
demanding they empower you to pretend you are the very best. A successful
leader is known for the excellence of his or her team, not for personal
excellence. A great leader does not boast about his own accomplishments,
but the accomplishments of his people.
For this, you must have both dignity and humility: the dignity to believe you
and your followers are worthy, but the humility to accept that worthiness is
not the same thing as being perfect from the very start. If you have both
humility and dignity, you can grow and change without feeling constant
shame that you had to.
Patience
Leadership also draws on patience. Those who are defeated by the process of
leadership are often tripped up by the inability to accept and prepare for the
time and effort leadership demands.
Great leaders may have no tolerance for dawdling and slacking, but they
must have infinite patience with processes and people. Some things are only
done when they are done, and no amount of pushing, pulling, goading,
whipping, motivating, manipulating, and mangling will change things for the
better. Any effort to speed things up may change circumstances for the
worse. An ideal human pregnancy takes approximately nine months, and any
attempt to hurry the process is bad for all concerned. Likewise, the
development of successful strategies, and the effective implementation of
good plans, demands the right amount of time.
Leadership cannot succeed if you lack a realistic understanding of the time
and effort involved in achieving a goal, and the many steps your
subordinates will have to climb along the way. Success is a matter of hard
work, steady progress, perseverance, more perseverance, and patience – and
the leader must be the most patient of all. The old tale rings true: “Hey,
mister, how do I get to Carnegie Hall … Practice, practice, practice!” While

15. your subordinates do the practice work to succeed at projects that you face,
you will have to practice the patience to accept the extraneous hours of labor
and frustration that it entails. Developing patience demands the humility
suggested in the last section – and along with it the realism that humility
demands.
A huge part of strong leadership is the ability to plan for patience by also
planning for incremental rewards as you and your team progress. Your
greatest goal may be your entire team playing the violin at Carnegie Hall, in
a bravura group performance of a Tchaikovsky concerto, applauded by
thousands. But along the way, you are going to have to allow yourself and
your violin orchestra to take real, honest delight in the first occasion they
successfully play a recognizable version of “Three Blind Mice.” Patience
endures best when it is fed a constant diet of little victories, and celebrations
and delight to go with those victories.
Plan for that. Build it into your basic leadership assumptions. See your goals
as a process of little steps, each bringing you a bit closer to a final victory.
See each of those steps as a very real accomplishment – and allow yourself
to rejoice when you gain those victories. In building this leadership attitude,
you strengthen your team’s self-confidence and morale, and your own
motivation and resolve. Of course, it would be great if you and they were
“so motivated” that you could work for eighty years to accomplish one
brilliant victory with no joys or successes along the way. That would be a
very tough-love kind of motivation – and it would be a totally unrealistic
leadership expectation.
By planning for small and manageable steps, frequent rewards, constant
celebration of improvements, you are doing basic motivational maintenance:
a necessary skill in a good leader. Just as you would expect to get oil
changes, new belts, fill the gas tank, and have regular tune-ups done on a car
for it to work well, motivation takes regular attention and feeding. You feed
it on dignity and hope, on little victories you know will add up over time;
you feed it with the knowledge that you are giving good value to respected
customers; you take pride in the contributions you make to your world and
field, even when they are just beginner’s contributions. You take joy in the
community of others you meet along the way.
It is this combination of joys that gives you high-power, armor-plated, grand
motivation and resolve, and carries you through the negative moments, the

16. losses, the set-backs, and the obstacles that you will inevitably face – and
you will be faced with plenty.
The Buck Stops Here: Accepting Accountability
There is perhaps no leadership skill more vital than the skill of taking
responsibility, and accepting accountability. If you accept the power and
authority of leadership, you must be willing to pay the price. That means
many things, but most of all it means knowing you have made the final
choices, and as a result you are the sole person to take any final blame.
Unfortunately, that does not mean you also get to dominate the praise when
circumstances go well. In victory it is vital to give each player their due, and
recognize their contributions. That is right and proper, and the least you can
do – you may have had the vision, but they made that vision possible in a
thousand ways, and often paid a price for their contribution. The praise is
shared, forever and always.
Blame, however, is yours, forever and always. In taking on the power and
authority to make the final decisions, you also take on the ultimate
responsibility for the outcome, for you are the one who has coordinated all
those many contributions, decisions, plans, processes, and possibilities.
That is a hard and weighty truth, and many leaders have broken trying to
accept it. As many have collapsed under the weight of a failure they
accepted, but could not recover from. But moral accountability is what gets
you through the bad times. That is why it is so important you feed your
leader’s spirit well and heartily on positive skills and attitudes: dignity, win-
win mutual victory, patience and tiny rewards, good planning, flexible
approaches, laughter and humility. You need all that, and more, to keep your
resolve strong and brawny in the face of a disaster.
Most of us have run into the old inspirational serenity prayer, by Reinhold
Niebuhr: “Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be
changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know
the one from the other.” When faced with catastrophe, leadership works best
with a calm, cool pragmatic hope like that at its core. With this sort of
realism you can accept the responsibility for the most overwhelming
obstacles with grace and courage, and proceed to get up and determine what

17. can then be overcome – and what must be endured. The very certainty that
some obstacles will defeat you, but others will not – but may demand great
courage from you – can strengthen your resolve when difficulty interferes
with your progress toward a goal.
When you accept accountability, you will need to stand strong in the face of
defeatists who will be quick to imply that you can never get back up – you
cannot, your team cannot, and your organization cannot. It is after defeat that
you must be most profoundly the living avatar of leadership. We live
surrounded by men and women who will knock us down with all the vigor
and verve of the passionate self-righteous. As you accept the failure, take
responsibility for it, and prepare to get back under way again, they will laugh
at you and your team’s pride in small victories, scorn your win-win
philosophy, despise your humility, loathe your dignity, and leave no
opportunity to revile you and reproach you go unused.
How do you deal with such a perfect storm of defeatist drivel? It is hard
during losing streaks, when set-backs seem to have swept you off your path,
obstacles crop up at every turn, plans require repair and reconsideration, and
goals must be adjusted to recognize new information and understanding. But
as a leader, you must believe, with all your heart, that a single failure need
not destroy all hope of future success – and rather than lying down and
quitting in despair and angst, your job as a leader is to provide the example
and encouragement to get your people back up again. Sometimes
circumstance will demand you find a way to do that from the grave, or from
exile, other times you will remain at the head of your organization and retain
control. Whatever the outcome, a great leader convinces his people and the
world that it is worth living, to try again.
A great leader refuses to allow a defeat – even a string of defeats – to define
him or her team.
Failure happens. You can treat failure as the end of your progress, or you
can treat it as a necessary and inevitable step along the way. You may not
succeed the first time, or the second, or the third. No surprise, no deep
shock: if you have a big goal, and a great dream, and you intend to reach it –
you are going to fail at least once along the way. It will happen, and there is
no shame in it. Failure does not have to send you crawling off in defeat, and
it does not have to end the dream.

18. What do you do about it? Get up, take a deep breath, dust off your shoulders,
and start over. Did you choose your goal poorly, or define it too broadly?
You will have to fix it. Did your plan fail to take certain truths or conditions
into account? Try again. Did you get too competitive and too focused on
your own victories, and forget the principle of win-win? It happens.