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

Embrace error: Create an atmosphere in which prudent risk taking is strongly encouraged.

Great things are achieved by talented people who are absolutely convinced that they not only can but will achieve them.

Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity

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

Leaders wonder about everything, want to learn as much as they can, are willing to take risks, experiment, try new things. They do not worry about failure but embrace errors, knowing they will learn from them.

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.