Leadership is personal. Your capacity to
inspire, energize and influence others stems largely from who you are. Yet many
leaders are afraid to show their true selves at work.

What Great Leaders Know
Great leaders know that leadership begins with being true to yourself. The best
leaders are open and honest about their feelings, needs, and weaknesses—as well
as their strengths. They readily admit they don’t have all the answers.

When you are true to yourself, you:
* Courageously accept the vulnerability that comes with being authentic.
* Freely voice your passions.
* Encourage others to be true to themselves.
* Make deeply rewarding connections.

Will you show up?
We all have inner demons. Don’t let yours hold you back. Face and resolve
negative, harmful thoughts and feelings so you can constructively lead with the
full force of your true self.

Ask yourself…
* Am I at ease being myself?
* Do I openly share my true beliefs?
* Do people at work know the real me?

“People are watching you every day. They notice what you say, what you don’t
say, and what you do. At the end of the day there are no secrets. All the truth
comes out. I just want to make sure that my truth is pure, that I am being
honest with myself.”
— Linda Rabbitt,
CEO,
rand* construction corporation

What Great Leaders Know
Great leaders are crystal clear about the legacy they want to create. While
ordinary leaders tend to defer thinking about their legacy until they approach
retirement, great leaders dedicate every day of their careers to building
significant, enduring value they can leave to their organizations, customers,
communities and colleagues.

Building your leadership legacy starts with three crucial questions:

* Who am I? What are my core values? What key experiences shaped me?
* What is my purpose? What unique, lasting contribution am I meant to make?
* How do I show up? Will my actions today make my legacy more real? Am I
being the leader I aspire to be?

Will you make a difference?
Without the driving force of legacy, your efforts will dissipate into a series
of loosely joined initiatives. Time goes by fast. Don’t wait another day to
consciously craft your leadership legacy.

Ask yourself…
* Do I work with a long term perspective? Or mostly race the clock?
* How clearly have I defined the difference I intend to make in this world?
* What am I doing right now to create the legacy I want?

Read what others are saying about creating your leadership legacy.

“Any CEO worth his salt is only there because he gives a damn about his
business and his people, and about serving customers well. That’s much more
important than any remuneration you’ll ever get. It’s the legacy you leave.”
— Jim Wainscott,,
Chairman & CEO,
AK Steel Holding Corporation

What Great Leaders Know
Great leaders never take anyone’s attention for granted. They grasp the
complexity of human communication, carefully weighing not only what they want
to say, but also how it will be received by people whose mental models may
differ from their own. The best communicators stay actively attuned to their
people and invest themselves fully in making their messages relevant,
compelling and impactful.

In our personal interviews with more than 300 CEOs from renowned companies
worldwide, we heard that great communications are the key to engaging and
aligning organizations. Based on that research and our two decades of
experience advising CEOs, we counsel top executives to make their
communications:

* Proactive. Stay visibly in front of your people year round. Let your voice
guide them through the twists and turns of the marketplace.
* Direct. Speak to your people personally, not through intermediaries or
company media.
* Two-way. Help your people talk directly to you. Tap their unfiltered
insights into what’s really happening.
* Actionable. With each communication, provide clear and immediate
opportunities to take focused action.

Read Personal Guidelines for Clear Communication.

Will you be heard?
In this age of information overload, attention is a precious commodity. You’ll
have to earn it.

Ask yourself…
* How do I determine what my people most need to hear?
* Does everyone who works for me have a clear sense of who I am? Are we
personally connected?
* Do I have access to my people’s unfiltered information and perspectives?

Read what others are saying about earning attention.

What Great Leaders Know
Great leaders know that in moments of darkness, your people will naturally turn
to you for hope. Life always brings ups and downs. When your team experiences
problems, mistakes or even crises, what will you do? Here, we offer a brief
summary of how to lead your team through troubled times:

* Believe. Feel the strength within you. Resolve to share it.
* Connect. Invite your team to envision a future you all want. Stress that
“We are in this together.” Show them your confidence and courage.
* Trust. See your problems as fixable and success as certain, even before the
facts tell you so. Urge your people to trust right along with you.
* Mobilize. Turn hope into concrete actions. Organize your team’s efforts.
Throw yourself fully into the endeavor. Watch for fresh openings. Never stop
pushing.

Read tips for Turning Negative Feelings into Productive Energy.

Will you be the difference?
Whether the situation is a failed project, a lost client, or something far
worse—such as the peril those miners faced in Chile—what you do can make all
the difference. Remember, when darkness looms, your first job as leader is to
cast the light of hope.

Ask yourself…
* When trouble hits, do I accept that it is a natural and unavoidable part of
life?
* Can I gauge and manage my anxiety? The anxiety of my team?
* When my team feels fear, do I focus them on pursuing what’s possible?

Read what others are saying about inspiring optimism and hope.

What Great Leaders Know
Great leaders know that even mature adults are capable of extraordinary mental
growth. That’s very good news, because you and your people must get smarter to
adapt to the world as it is. You can and you will… if you are intellectually
healthy.

What does intellectual health look like?
* Active engagement. Current studies show that the brain does not
automatically deteriorate as we age. Rather, the axiom “Use it or lose it”
seems to apply. Intellectually healthy people exercise their cognitive
abilities to stay mentally sharp.
* Open mind. We come into this world with insatiable curiosity, but over time
we tend to close ourselves off to new ideas. Intellectually healthy people
readily perceive and willingly embrace fresh possibilities.
* Lifelong learning. Closely related to an open mind is the drive to
understand, explore and learn. As a lifelong learner you accept uncertainty,
seek out (rather than resist) new experiences, and energetically push the
boundaries of conventional thinking.

Where can you grow?
Ask yourself…
* What am I doing to stretch my mind and keep it sharp?
* Have I set clear goals for my intellectual growth and development?
* Am I cultivating the intellectual health and ambitious development of my
people?