Leadership is a struggle. There's no way around it. Even if you can begin employing a set of general principles to be a better leader, the people you're trying to lead, the history you share (or don't, which does happen sometimes), and the mission (or lack of clear mission) have the potential to throw so many wrenches in the gears. In my own leadership journey (which is still pretty new, mind you), I've found that the key is buy-in. Get buy-in as soon as you can from the team: - Get them to buy in to you as a person that can really help - Get buy-in on the mission/objective/project goal, etc. - Get buy-in on the strategy you're going to use - Get buy-in on the tactics you'll use Then it's about maintaining buy-in over time. Buy-in can quickly (and quietly) turn into ambivalence or straight up divestment. Part of the "soft" work of leadership is maintaining an awareness of everyone's level of buy-in (or lack of it). That's hard enough. But then, it's about quickly working to get that buy-in again. That often involves the leader being 2 things that the classical "strongman" leader usually isn't: - a genuinely good (i.e., effective) listener - flexible and creative--especially when confronted with people who are neither As simple as that one thing (buy-in) sounds, it's incredibly difficult. My journey right now involves getting that right.