The failure to find the right niche for people - or to let them find their own perfect niches - is a major reason that so many workplaces are mediocre, even toxic, in spite of the presence of talent. Leaders of great groups give them whatever they need and free them from everything else.

That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.

The manager administers; the leader innovates.

The capacity for "uncontaminated wonder," ultimately, is what distinguishes the successful from the ordinary, the happily engaged players of whatever era from the chronically disappointed and malcontent. Therein lies a lesson for geeks, geezers, and the sea of people who fall in between.

The learning person looks forward to failure or mistakes. The worst problem in leadership is basically early success.

Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.

This duality, making yourself better while teaching and developing others' judgment capabilities, is the key to leadership that is both productive and principled.