There are two must-haves for leaders generally, but particularly in a crisis. They are generosity (a giving of things) and courage (laying oneself on the line). Of the two, courage is more difficult because the price you may have to pay is greater. Courage is also in shorter supply. But without courage – ‘benevolence in the hand but steel in the hand’ – you cannot lead.

OUR SUMMARY OF THIS VIDEO: We talk about vision and charisma – yes these are important, but I’ve known some wonderful leaders who don’t have huge world-changing vision; I’ve known some wonderful leaders that are quiet and sit in the corner.

But they all have courage – the courage to advance a vision; the courage to ignore the short-term ups and downs of the business; the courage to take risks on people; the courage to believe in people; the courage to speak truth to power; the courage to do the right thing and have integrity.

I think courage is a very undervalued characteristic of leadership.

Leadership is perhaps one of the most misunderstood subjects in business. Leadership has nothing to do with rank. I know many people who sit at the highest levels of organizations but who are not leaders. We do as they tell us because they have authority over us but we do not trust them and we do not follow them.

I also know people at low levels of organizations that have no formal authority but they’ve made a choice the choice to look after the person to the left of them, the choice to look after the person to the right of them – and we would trust them and follow them anywhere.

Leadership is the awesome responsibility to see those around us rise. Every one of us can choose to be the leader we wish we had. We can lead our teams and we can lead our clients when we decide that we will do everything in our power to see them rise, to see them achieve their ambitions and their dreams.

This is what servant leadership means: I serve your dream rather than you serve my bottom line.

It’s totally fine to have financial goals, to have metrics because they become the proof of value that people want to give you their money.

The best leaders I know are students of leadership. There’s no such thing as an expert leader, it doesn’t exist – like there’s no such thing as an expert parent, it doesn’t exist. We are students of leadership; even the most senior leaders constantly are reading books, reading articles, watching talks, having conversations about leadership. They’re always in learning mode.

For anyone who wants to be a leader you have to choose to be a student of the subject – like anything, if you want to be good at it, you have to study it.