Rule #3: Leadership Is Confusing As Hell

4. When it comes to talent, leadership doesn't income-average. It's a favorite one-liner these days: There is no "I" in team. What crap! Is there anyone who really thinks that Phil Jackson won six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls by averaging Michael Jordan's talent with that of the rest of the team? Yes, teamwork is important. No, teamwork doesn't mean bringing everyone with exceptional talent down to the level of the lowest common denominator.

Bottom line: Stellar teams are invariably made up of quirky individuals who typically rub each other raw, but they figure out -- with the spiritual help of a gifted leader (such as Phil Jackson at Chicago or Los Angeles) -- how to be their peculiar selves and how to win championships as a team. At the same time.

5. Leaders love the mess. One leader who deserves to be celebrated? That fabulous third-grade teacher your Charlie has -- the one who sees each of her 23 charges as unique-quirky souls who are in totally different places on their developmental paths toward becoming their cool-peculiar selves. The third-grade teacher whom you should avoid at all costs? The one who's got everything under control, with all of the kids sitting at their desks, completely unable to express themselves. There's no mess -- and no creativity, no energy, no inspired leadership. You want leadership? Go find a fabulous third-grade teacher, and watch how he "plays" the classroom.

6. The leader is rarely -- possibly never? -- the best performer. I once read that the three greatest psychological transitions an adult human being goes through are marriage, parenthood, and her first supervisory job. In each of these situations, people learn to live and to succeed primarily through the success of others. Which is why there is no more important decision that a company makes than the selection of its first-line managers.

Who are those people? Take a look at the former players from the world of sports who become the best coaches and managers. Last summer, Tommy Lasorda coached the U.S. Olympic baseball team to a gold medal, finally defeating the Cubans. In his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Tommy L. was a terrific manager. His own career as a player? It lasted for three at bats.

The best leader is rarely the best pitcher or catcher. The best leader is just what's advertised: the best leader. Leaders get their kicks from orchestrating the work of others -- not from doing it themselves.

7. Leaders deliver. If you're aiming to be a real leader during the next five years, then you need to mimic the pizza man: You'd better deliver! For the past five years, ideas and cool have counted (which was important). What counts now? Performance. Results.

8. Leaders create their own (peculiar?) destinies. During the next five years, there won't be room for paper pushers. Only people who make personal determinations to be leaders will survive -- and that holds true at all levels of all organizations (including entry level).

Surprisingly, we've seen this phenomenon take place most often where most people least expect to find it: in the military. First, war is the ultimate improv venture. The most improvisational, least hierarchical situation that I've ever been in was my 16-month stint in Vietnam. But second, real-life experience in the Army or in the Navy teaches you that you must have leaders at every level. So too in today's corporate wars. In this new world order, the real battle starts when the computer gets knocked out, the captain gets killed, the lieutenant is gravely wounded, the sergeant is hesitant, and suddenly the 18-year-old Iowa farmhand finds himself leading a platoon into combat. And the life and death of the company or the team or the project hangs in the balance. That's leadership at all levels, which boot camp teaches a lot better than business school.

9. Leaders win through logistics. Vision, sure. Strategy, yes. But when you go to war, you need to have both toilet paper and bullets at the right place at the right time. In other words, you must win through superior logistics. Go back to the Gulf War. After that war ended, the media stories focused on the strategy that was devised by Colin Powell and executed by Norman Schwartzkopf. For my money, the guy who won the Gulf War was Gus Pagonis, the genius who managed all of the logistics.

It doesn't matter how brilliant your vision and strategy are if you can't get the soldiers, the weapons, the vehicles, the gasoline, the chow -- the boots, for God's sake! -- to the right people, at the right place, at the right time. (Right now, Amazon.com and a hundred of its dotkin are learning -- or failing to learn -- the Gus Pagonis lesson.)