Find the appropriate balance of competing claims by various groups of stakeholders. All claims deserve consideration but some claims are more important than others.

Great things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will accomplish them.

Think of successful creative collaborations are dreams with deadlines.

Without character, there is no credibility; and without credibility, there is no trust.

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

Encourage dissent: Leaders should have associates who have contrary views, who are devil's advocates, "variance sensors" who can tell them the difference between what is expected and what is really happening, between what they want to hear and what they need to hear. There are too many naked emperors running around today.

Some of the strongest resistance to necessary change is the result of what Jim O'Toole has so aptly characterized as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom."