Kingmaker: Be the One Your Company Wants to Keep... On Your Terms

Chapter 8. The Responsibility of Leadership

Here are a couple of sayings you might have heard: “The fish stinks from the head” and “Not to each other.” These aren’t lines from a television screenplay for an episode of The Sopranos. They are axioms for the importance of leadership to the feel, progress and viability of an organization. “Not to each other” means not to lie or fool one another, that trust is integral to the organization and the way in which leaders lead makes all the difference to productivity, truth and the honor of great work.

Leadership qualities include integrity, passion, credibility, vision, courage, product and sector knowledge, the ability to articulate the vision, decisiveness, accountability, empathy, inclusion, positive ...