Rule #3: Leadership Is Confusing As Hell

25. Leaders have taste. It's a big part of the often-subtle topic of design. There is such a thing as good taste. Maybe a better word is "grace." I love this quote from designer Celeste Cooper: "My favorite word is 'grace' -- whether it's amazing grace, saving grace, grace under fire, Grace Kelly. How we live contributes to beauty -- whether it's how we treat other people or the environment." Leaders who would change our lives don't shy away from words like grace and beauty and taste.

26. Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders. Too many old-fashioned leaders measure their influence by the number of followers that they can claim. But the greatest leaders are those who don't look for followers. Think of Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, or Nelson Mandela. They were looking for more leaders in order to empower others to find and create their own destinies.

27. Leaders love rainbows -- for totally pragmatic reasons. Another good word gone bad: "diversity." The case for diversity during the past 20 years has been that it was the "right thing to do." Well, in no-bull times, diversity isn't a good thing, it's an essential thing. It's a survival thing. The case for diversity is the case against homogeneity: When the world is undergoing sudden, unpredictable, dire change, you need to have a diverse gene pool. You need to have multiple points of view. In a heterogeneous time, homogeneity sucks!

28. Leaders don't fall prey to their own success. There are a lot of people who have made it really, really big over the past five years. Some of them actually think that they're responsible for their success, if you can imagine that. But in crazy times, leaders don't believe in their own press clippings. And they never, ever let their organizations get complacent! Read The Paradox of Success: When Winning at Work Means Losing at Life: A Book of Renewal for Leaders (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1993), by John O'Neil. He talks about the good qualities that breed monsters. The first one on the list: Confidence breeds a sense of infallibility. Again: Amen.

29. Leaders never get caught fighting the last war. It's the age-old problem with bemedalled generals: They're always preparing to fight the last war. The lesson, embedded in history, applies to business. What business are you in? The only answer that makes sense today is, God alone knows! Did you win the war during the past five years? Were you an early adopter of Internet ways? Good for you! The only problem is that the Internet is still in diapers. The old giants are awakening to its potential. What's your next totally new act?

30. But leaders have to deliver, so they worry about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Did I mention that these are paradoxical times? Well, they are. So here's the flip side to the other side: You must execute consistently, while fighting consistency. Years ago, in Liberation Management: Necessary Organization for the Nanosecond Nineties (A. A. Knopf, 1992), I called it the "ultimate leadership paradox." To be "excellent" (to deliver profits, provide quality, and satisfy customers), you must be consistent and build a stellar infrastructure-delivery capability. But the single-mindedness that allows you to hit earnings targets and quality goals is a disguised set of blinders that makes you vulnerable to new, oddball threats (consistency = focus = blinders). Love the bathwater! Throw the bathwater out! Go figure!

31. Leaders honor the assassins in their own organizations. There's only one reason why any human being ever makes it into the history books: because he or she remorselessly overthrew the conventional wisdom. Those are leaders. But truly great leaders, the ones who aim to leave a legacy, go to the next level. They consistently seek out and honor the people in their own organizations who want to overthrow their conventional wisdom. Great leaders honor the people who want to depose them, the assassins in their midst. Real leaders, repeat after me: All hail Brutus!

32. Leaders love technology. I mean love! L-O-V-E. Here's the equation for the next five years: Technology = architect of change. If you don't love (and I don't mean like or tolerate) the technology, it will change you and your company, but you will be the unwitting victim, not the partner of change. Look, you don't have to be a technologist. But you must embrace technology, care for it. It is your friend, your lover. It will be unfaithful at times. It will lead you down dark and dangerous alleys. No matter. It is remaking the world. And you must joyously leap aboard (that's the way love is).