1. Leaders never let circumstances dictate the outcome. Leaders learn to respond to their circumstances. They know that they cannot always control what happens, but they can control how they respond to what happens.
2. Leaders are persistent. They have their big idea and they stick with it.
3. Leaders take a realistic inventory of their talents and abilities. They recognize their personal strengths and weaknesses. They play to their own strengths and overcome their weaknesses by capitalizing on the strengths of others.
4. Leaders are resilient. They recognize that failure is an opportunity to learn and grow. They do not fear failure, they embrace it. They see every failure as a step closer to the realization of their dreams. They become masters of overcoming obstacles and staying focused on a positive outcome.
5. Leaders have passion. They are faithful and they pursue their dreams with a constant vigor. They do not fear rejection and loss as much as they fear living without a purpose.
6. A good leader has key people around them who they can confide it, share ideas with and in general use as a sounding board. It is only through listening that we develop and maintain close relationships, in which there is enough freedom to express feelings and observations honestly. It’s one thing to listen and another to listen with the intent to understand…when you listen with the intent to understand you are focused on receiving the deep communication of another human soul.  One of the very best practices to help you with this is to make sure you repeat out loud what the other person has stated. Something like “Let me make sure I understand what you are saying…”  Many times those around us have the solutions to our problems, but we just don’t allow them to participate in a meaningful way.
7. Leaders accept chaos as an existing precondition, and they don’t struggle against it or attempt to resolve it instantly with short term solutions. Leadership means among other things, summoning the ability to cope and bring about change. That is to say, true leadership may be thought of as the art of not quitting when something unexpected happens. Or another way of thinking about that is not to panic.

That’s all I’m saying.