On Leadership

King George VI had in abundance the traits of leaders elucidated during interviews on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS today. The Sunday morning  television host interviewed such leaders as a former British Prime Minister, the CEO of three companies including now IBM, the President of Yale University and an influential female former Governor of New Jersey. He asked them to enumerate leadership characteristics. According to these leaders, leadership is about:

1) Getting people to want to do what you want them to by persuading them it is in their best interest.

2) Leaders give an urgency to decision-making.

3) What one is expected to do in a leadership position is to make decisions, even if they are unpopular. As long as they are correct, hard decisions can become accepted in time.