Anyone can walk down a path with people following behind.  That is one way to be a leader.  Another way is to cut a path through the woods and have people follow.  Both of these are pretty brute forces methods, however.  A true leadership characteristic is not only to lead others down the path but to anticipate the correct path to follow.

Anticipation as a leader can come in the planning stages, when you have the courage to ask what if things go wrong.   Or it can come in the implementation,...

At one of those company retreat things, we were broken up into several groups and given “team building” tasks.   The last one involved the facilitator saying that we, as a group, had to get some spongy balls from one end of the room to the other, without throwing them.  So one person jumped out and immediately lined everyone up and told use how we were going to pass the balls, etc.  One person (okay, it was me!) looked at one of the tables and saw a vase.  I asked if we could put the ball...