Leadership means realizing potential-in yourself and in the people you lead.... The leader and followers cocreate their identities and performance.

We often say that someone has exceptional political or social savvy, but what specific cognitive skills allow these people to handle interpersonal situations so effectively? Typically, socially skilled people are exceptional at recognizing underlying agendas, anticipating the probable effects and likely unintended consequences of a chosen course of action. These specific capabilities determine one's "people smarts."

Leadership means realizing potential-in yourself and in the people you lead.... The leader and followers cocreate their identities and performance.

One of the capabilities, which seems to be the most difficult for aspiring leaders to maste is realistic optimism. It requires one to recognize that our experience of life is largely up to us, that our situations, good or bad, are largely due to our ability on a moment-to-moment basis to capitalize on opportunity. Those that approach life as if it is largely outside of their own control, or that others are largely to blame for their circumstances, generally find growth elusive.

The development and/or revelation of a CEO's potential for great leadership requires slow escalations of experiences that involve pressure, each time given the tools to succeed. Successful experience breeds confidence, as well as an eventual restlessness to try more.

The principles that make someone a master in the chief executive role deal with whether or not they can thrive in an environment of ongoing duress, and teach others how to do so.

The intelligence gap is essentially a shortage of executives with superior thinking skills who are needed by every business, as compared with the number of decision-making positions available.