How and Why to Be a Leader

Umair Haque for the Harvard Business Review Blog Network: 

We're in the midst of a Great Dereliction — a historic failure of leadership, precisely when we need it most. Hence it's difficult, looking around, to even remember what leadership is. We're surrounded by people who are expert at winning — elections, deals, titles, bonuses, bailouts, profit. And often, we're told: they're the ones we should look up to — because it's the spoils and loot that really matter.

But you know and I know: mere winners are not true leaders — not just because gaming broken systems is nothing but an empty charade of living; but because life is not a game. It isn't about what you have, and how much — but what you do, and why — if you're to live a life that matters.

Leadership — true leadership —is a lost art. Leaders lead us not to a place — but to a different kind of destination: to our better, truer selves. It is an act of love in the face of an uncertain world.

Entrepreneur Mike Sellers Advice For New Startups

Game designer, entrepreneur and AI researcher Mike Sellers answers the Quora question "As first time entrepreneurs, what part of the process are people often completely blind to?" 

An idea is not a design
A design is not a prototype
A prototype is not a program
A program is not a product
A product is not a business
A business is not profits
Profits are not an exit
And an exit is not happiness.

Trust Yourself

Designer James Victore at 99u: 

The first level of trust is having it in yourself—trusting that your opinions matter and are valid. Even believing that your guess is as good as anyone else’s adds a level of personal trust and self-respect. This perspective, allows you the courage to crawl further out on a limb, to take chances and make sure you are not playing safe—or, worse, “giving the people what they want.” It also allows you to listen to your own opinion without the nagging voice of well wishing, but fearful friends (“You’re gonna start a business… in THIS economy?”) whose sincerest wish is to shield you from failure, while only succeeding in protecting you from success. Or, worse, to listen to the tiny critics inside your own head who concoct the wildest scenes possible of failure, carnage and financial ruin. It takes grit to stay on course, to trust yourself, your vision, your calling, and recognize this resistance for what it is: fear.

A perfect complement to the previous post.  

Del Close's Eleven Commandments of Improvisation→

Another great post from Open Culture, Del Close's Eleven Commandments of Improvisation: 

1. You are all supporting actors.
2. Always check your impulses.
3. Never enter a scene unless you are NEEDED.
4. Save your fellow actor, don’t worry about the piece.
5. Your prime responsibility is to support.
6. Work at the top of your brains at all times.
7. Never underestimate or condescend to your audience.
8. No jokes (unless it is tipped in front that it is a joke.)
9. Trust… trust your fellow actors to support you; trust them to come through if you lay something heavy on them; trust yourself.
10. Avoid judging what is going down except in terms of whether it needs help (either by entering or cutting), what can best follow, or how you can support it imaginatively if your support is called for.
11. LISTEN

They apply to all creative endeavors.  

David Ogilvy: 10 Qualities of Creative Leaders→

"Father of Advertising" David Ogilvy on the ten qualities creative leaders must have. His book Confessions of an Advertising Man is a must read.  

1. High standards of personal ethics.
2. Big people, without pettiness.
3. Guts under pressure, resilience in defeat.
4. Brilliant brains — not safe plodders.
5. A capacity for hard work and midnight oil.
6. Charisma — charm and persuasiveness.
7. A streak of unorthodoxy — creative innovators.
8. The courage to make tough decisions.
9. Inspiring enthusiasts — with trust and gusto.
10. A sense of humor.