How to be a successful leader

This episode of Fareed Zakaria GPS is excellent. He interviews several successful leaders from politics, business, and the military about their thoughts on what qualities make a successful leader. The video is 42 minutes long. It is well worth watching.

I really like Tony Blair's comments. He lists three common traits of leadership:

1. A clear sense of what you want to achieve
2. The ability to step up and step out, not step back, when responsibility comes knocking
3. A willingness to do things that are difficult, even unpopular, but you believe in them so you're going to do them

He says, "If you take any organization, the people that make the change and get the thing done are usually creative and innovative and very determined—and are prepared, when that mantle of responsibility is floating by, to take it and put it on their shoulders no matter how heavy it is."