When people decide to follow you as a leader, it is because of your character or your skills or both. If you "have the goods" and intend to succeed as a leader, you must "sell" to the world or to the individual, true ideas about your particular qualifications for success-true ideas regarding your best capabilities and the value of your leadership. Your "goods" are your talents, skill, integrity and knowledge that you bring to the partnership. Regardless of how capable you are, how much talent you may have or how much you desire to lead others, this will all be wasted unless others realize the best you have to offer.

If you ask a dozen people what are the qualities of a successful leader, you will get a dozen different opinions. One thing is certain, however, leadership is best when it is guided by principles. Principles are objective, impersonal and self-evident. Qualities like respect, honesty, kindness, integrity, service and fairness will never let you down, never disappoint you. When you base your leadership on these qualities, you have a solid foundation to build a relationship with others. You will be the kind of person others want to follow. They will have the trust in you that is necessary to believe that you can bring out the best within them.

When principles guide you as a leader, you can see the potential in others, their worth that often goes unnoticed and may go undiscovered until you bring it out. What a gift you offer to that individual and to society.

The following six principles are by no means exclusive, but it is a beginning.

1. Respect: This principle goes beyond allowing others their opinions. It is truly based on ethics. Retaining self-respect is absolutely necessary as a leader. If you act in a particular manner just to please others, you are doing yourself and others a great disservice. It is far better to displease others by doing what you know is ethically right than trying to placate people. When you maintain this self-respect because of your guiding principles, you will be a positive role model who lives and leads by the best of qualities. You will also see the value in others opinions and allow them the right to that opinion.

2. Honesty: When you are true to your word, you establish a bond with others that cannot be broken. When leaders are not honest, it always comes back to haunt them. There is no value in manipulating the truth to serve you. It’s not lasting and will be the destruction of the relationship.

3. Kindness: Certainly as a leader there are many opportunities to demonstrate this quality. Most often these opportunities will be in the form of actions and words. The right gesture of kindness at the right time will make all the difference in your life and the life of the person who looks to you as a leader. The most important point to remember is to think about what the other person needs to experience and hear, not what you may what to do or say.

4. Integrity: Integrity is doing what you say you will. If you follow through on your word, people will trust you because you keep your promises. There is a second value to keeping your word. You not only develop a better relationship with others, you build trust in yourself; you add to your own self-esteem. When you keep your word, and you tell others what you can and will do for them as a leader, they have every reason to trust this is true because it is.

5. Service: Initially, people think of service in relationship to what they can do for others. This is certainly true, but the concept of service goes deeper. As a leader who develops his leadership on principles, he must be true to himself, to his purpose, to the greater good. When he does this, he can also serve others by bringing out the best within them and help them to reach their full potential.

6. Fairness: Doing what is right, what is ethical is always the best choice. Considering the needs and desires of others may not always be easy, but no one said being a leader was easy. Act from your heart and conscience and give beyond what is required.

As a leader, you have the opportunity and duty to bring out the best in yourself and others. You may be the only one who encourages their dreams. Mark Twain gave great advice when he said, "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."