© Doug Macnamara; Featured in Profit Magazine Fall 2001

1. Leadership can't be learned from a book! (Or just talking about it, or studying it.)
You have to do it!

2. Leadership requires scanning your network, and the world, and identifying the needs/opportunities for change and adaptation.

3. Leadership is about taking initiative - to creating meaning, motivation and engagement of your people.

4. Leadership requires effective communications and the ability to 'connect' various people in your network together.

5. Leadership requires Vision, the ability to involve others in that Vision creation, and the ability to transfer excitement, hope, and the pursuit of the Vision by others.

6. Leadership brings out the best in the people around you. Creating the environment that stimulates innovation and causes people to go above and beyond their job description.

7. Leadership is selfless. (It is not ego-driven.)

8. Leadership is about sustainability, not just the 'next quarter'.

9. Leadership chooses whatever is 'the right thing to do'.

10. Leadership, in all it's strategic, adaptive, motivational, risk-taking, innovative, systems thinking, responsible, and accountable nature is hard work!

If you want to be a better leader, then offer yourself up as a leader - in your organization, as a volunteer, in your community,… Then get some feedback and refine your practice! Leadership is an art not a science, and requires practice.