Powells Leadership Insight

Here's Colin Powell Leadership Guidepost

1. Being responsible means sometimes pissing people off.
2. The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
3. Dont be buffaloed by experts and elites. They often possess more data than judgement.
4. Dont be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.
5. Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.
6. You don't know what you can get away with until you try.
7. Keep looking below surface appearances.
8. Organizations doesnt accomplish anything. Plans dont accomplish anything either. Theories of management dont much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish a great deal.
9. Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.
10. Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.
11. Fit no stereotypes. Dont chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the teams mission.
12. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
13. Look for intelligence and judgement, and most critically, a capacity for anticipate. To see around corners. And look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego and the drive to get things done.
14. Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt. Offering solution everybody can understand.
15. Use formula P=40 to 70. If probablility of success is > 40, then go for the decision. Decision delayed is decision denied.
16. The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proven otherwise.

Thoughts?