Your manifesto on the practices employed by effective leaders is impressive but in my experiences as an army office, I believe you have ignored a couple of key practices that are necessary to foster a successful environment needed for an organization to succeed.

I believe a good leader has to be willing to continuously learn and grow in all aspects of his/her life. You must stay relevant in your field of expertise. Maintaining proficiency in your field of expertise will help increase the personal power that you possess, helping to gain equilibrium between personal and positional power, thereby increasing your effectiveness as a leader within the organization. You must also be willing to continually refine your interpersonal skills in order to understand both your superiors and subordinates; this knowledge will assist in developing a leadership philosophy that is effective and appropriate for the organization.

A leader must also have the foresight to create a philosophy that is in agreement with the goals of the organization. An apposite philosophy is critical in fostering an environment in which a leader can thrive by creating an atmosphere that is vital in mission success. It is vital because in the absence of a team environment, individuals are inclined to self-preservation, this behavior could possibly lead individuals to suppress behaviors and actions that would be beneficial to an organization. If leadership is judged by an organization’s bottom line then building a strong team is the ultimate goal of good leadership and creating an atmosphere where teams can succeed is a key practice of a good leader.

Jon

1. Leaders acknowledge the contribution of others. I bring that one up because I looked back through your other posts and I noticed that in your last 5 posts you acknowledged only 2 people who responded on your blog. Frankly, that’s a horrible way to show that you appreciate what others might have given to help push your blog forward.

2. Leaders take care of the small stuff. I bring that one up because I noticed that many of the comments are garbage, in essence what bloggers deem as “blog spam”, and when a leader allows quality to erode like that it doesn’t look good for their leadership skills.

3. Leaders follow through on commitments. As I was looking back through those blogs I noticed there was a major league gap of 9 months between blog posts. Didn’t that just negate your #13 and #14 above?

I take you to task not because I don’t think you put together a nice list. I take you to task because I think you have great ideas in your posts yet haven’t shown that you believe leadership encompasses everything that you do. I mean, if your blog doesn’t reflect that it deserves dedication then what does that say to everyone else if they happen upon your blog first before checking anything else out. I personally believe you’re better than that; otherwise, I wouldn’t have wasted my time writing any of this.