What job is worth the enormous psychic cost of following a leader who values loyalty in the narrowest sense.

The ability to plan for what has not yet happened, for a future that has only been imagined, is one of the hallmarks of leadership.

Understand the "Pygmalion Effect": Leaders should always expect the very best of those around them. They know that people can change and grow.

The leader...is rarely the brightest person in the group. Rather they have extraordinary taste, which makes them more curators than creators. They are appreciators of talent and nurturers of talent and they have the ability to recognize valuable ideas.

A new leader has to be able to change an organization that is dreamless, soulless and visionless... someone's got to make a wake up call.

Understand stakeholder symmetry: Find the appropriate balance of competing claims by various groups of stakeholders.

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born - that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.