The single biggest barrier to effective leadership is, in my view, the leadership industry itself. Instead of telling people the skills and behaviors they need to be effective in getting things done, we tell them almost the opposite - blandishments about how we wish people would be, and how we wish workplaces were. That information is worse than useless as, to the extent people believe it, they often wind up losing their jobs.

You can't be normal and expect abnormal returns.

Volumes in the series on Lyndon Johnson, including Master of the Senate and The Path Power, describe how Johnson created resources out of nothing and built a substantial power base.

So, the three qualities of a workplace that would develop people would be information sharing, investing in the training of the workforce, and giving employees the ability to use their training and information to make decisions.

With respect to trust, people tell me that it is essential for organizational functioning. Maybe, but most surveys of trust find that trust in leaders is low and nonetheless, organizations role along quite nicely.

Everyone faces defeats, setbacks, reversals of fortune. But just like water wearing away rock, persistence triumphs. Resilience is one of the most important qualities I would look at in trying to predict who is going to be ultimately successful.

We now live in an era of the permanent campaign - all marketing and messaging all the time. We clearly live in an era where the "truth" doesn't matter much - people tell lies about things ranging from the likelihood of "death panels" to the effects of the stimulus on saving this economy from a true calamity. In such a context, Obama himself needs to be "selling" all the time, as does his team, and also be more forceful in advocating their views. He needs to project that he and his ideas will win. And I don't think he has yet done that.