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

People vary enormously in how they learn. Some learn through their eyes - by reading but also by responding to all kinds of visual information. Others learn mostly through their ears or touch or other senses.

Unlike top management at Enron, exemplary leaders reward dissent. They encourage it. They understand that, whatever momentary discomfort they experience as a result of being told they might be wrong, it is more than offset by the fact that the information will help them make better decisions.

A leader is someone whose actions have the most profound consequences on other people's lives, for better or worse, sometime forever and ever.

All of great leaders evidence four basic qualities that are central to their ability to lead: adaptive capacity, the ability to engage others through shared meaning, a distinctive voice, and unshakeable integrity. These four qualities mark all exemplary leaders, whatever their age, gender, ethnicity, or race.

That is the key challenge facing management today; change is the only constant.

Recognize and respect mutual self-interests, then build creative collaborations to serve them.