We want our leaders to be fair dinkum, as much among us as above us.

It's instructive to consider the more spectacular and well-known falls from grace of leaders in the public eye... In the main, the issues behind these falls could be grouped under a lack of competence, a lack of support or loyalty from those they sought to lead, and a lack of failure of integrity. Of all these the last is the most egregious, the most fatal. We so much want our leaders to be unfailingly decent that an obvious or perceived flaw in integrity can be the toxin which kills them off.

Communication is the conduit of leadership from the Prime Minister down to the leading hand of a small group of council workers fixing the roads. Leadership uncommunicated is leadership unrequited!

We want our leaders to be fair dinkum, as much among us as above us.

But it is my total conviction that all the trappings of good leadership are generic and widely applicable whether you are standing in a khaki queue with your mess tins or on an automobile production line.

Let's start therefore with a universal truth: leaders are fundamentally accountable.

Older people often mistakenly consider that the young people do not care about their country, but the reverse is actually true.