First and foremost, effective leaders must continuously strive to make themselves smarter and better at making judgments.

One of the qualities that all the leaders have is a voracious appetite to learn whatever they do not as yet know and understand, coupled with an openness to new experiences.

Too many companies believe people are interchangeable. Truly gifted people never are. They have unique talents. Such people cannot be forced into roles they are not suited for, nor should they be. Effective leaders allow great people to do the work they were born to do.

Power is the basic energy needed to initiate and sustain action or, to put it another way, the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it. Leadership is the wise use of this power: Transformative leadership.

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.

The new leader is one who commits people to action, who converts followers into leaders, and who may convert leaders into agents of change.

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