1. The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers. Some people are thinkers. Some are prophets. Both roles are important and badly needed. But without followers, there can be no leaders.
2. An effective leader is not someone who is loved or admired. He or she is someone whose followers do the right things. Popularity is not leadership. Results are.
3. Leaders are highly visible. They therefore set examples.
4. Leadership is not rank, privileges, titles, or money. It is responsibility.
Effective leaders, regardless of their diversity with respect to personality styles, abilities or interests, behaved much the same way:
- They did not start out with th1e question, "What do I want?" They started out asking, "What needs to be done?"
- Then they asked, "What can and should I do to make a difference?" This has to be something that both needs to be done and fits the leader's strengths and the way she or he is most effective.
- They constantly asked, "What are the organization's mission and goals? What constitutes performance and results in this organization?"
- They are extremely tolerant of diversity in people and did not look for carbon copies of themselves. It rarely even occurred to them to ask, "Do I like or dislike this person?" But they were totally - fiendishly -= intolerant when it came to a person's performance, standards and values.
- They were not afraid of strength in their associates. They gloried in it. Whether they heard of it or not, their motto was what Andrew Carnegie wanted to have put on his tombstone: "Here lies a man who attracted better people into his service than he was himself."
- One way or another, they submitted themselves to the "mirror test" - that is, they made sure that the person they saw in the mirror in the morning was the kind of person they wanted to be, respect and believe in. This way they fortified themselves against the leader's greatest temptations - to do things that are popular rather than right and to do petty, mean, sleazy things.
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