Leadership through the ages

将者，智信仁勇严。
A general (a leader of men) should have knowledge, integrity, compassion, courage and discipline.

I am always amazed by this simple phrase by Sun-tzu. It was written more than 2000 years ago, yet it continues to be applicable today. In a simple phrase, it encapsulates what a leader should be, the qualities that allows a person to assume a leadership position and effectively lead people. Five words that survived the test of time, that spans cultures and continues to ring true even in this modern age so different from the circumstances when it was written.

A leader needs to know his stuff. Else he cannot lead his charges. How to lead, when he doesn't know what to do? He needs integrity, to keep to his word, so that people know that he means what he says. He is thus sincere yet strict. He must have compassion, for it is people he is leading and not machines. He needs to be able to feel what they feel so that his people feels understood. He must be courageous, else no one will follow him into danger. He must be willing to stand up for what is correct, and not take the short cut to avoid trouble. He must hold himself to high standards in order to inspire others to those same standards, and to do so he needs to have discipline.

A leader leads by the example he sets, and it is not in doing the things that he tells others to do, but in the things that he himself does.