The lesson learned from Winston Churchill

• Know your "noble cause." Jobs understood that if teams don’t find their work meaningful, they perceive challenging directives from a leader as arbitrary demands rather than a call to sacrifice for a higher purpose.
• Tell your story early and often. If you can’t weave your ideas into a clear, compelling story, those ideas remain abstract words likely to be forgotten.
• Push, but within boundaries. Make sure you have a clear end point and time line in mind before you go into "push" mode. Intense work with no clear end in sight is demoralizing.

Charismatic leaders think outside the box and aren’t afraid to push the limits.

While others may see this kind of push as risky, these leaders are the ones leading the way and driving innovation. When a problem arises, leaders don’t see only the difficulties. Instead, they rise to the challenge and see it as an opportunity. In business, this creativity can lead to powerful change and transformation, which can inspire and motivate others.

"Leadership requires two things: a vision of the world that does not yet exist and the ability to communicate it.” - Simon Sinek 

Because leaders value innovation, they are focused on the future and how they can improve it. They have a dream and direction that motivates and inspires others. 

To become a more effective communicator, you must 'smoke out' original thought. Rather than conforming to the status quo, make a conscious decision to abandon overdone and clichéd material/

Citing tired platitudes might win you a few "cool points" in social media circles, but they will only take you so far if you're truly striving to effectuate change. 

Once you’ve developed a fresh idea, work on organizing your message and polishing your delivery. Think about:

• How  you will launch a stunning opening and closing line
• How you will organize your material succinctly so that it is both moving and memorable (perhaps tweetable and repeatable)
• Compelling details that should be included.
• Your vocal and non-verbal communication (body language).

Great leaders have a clear, exciting idea of where they are going. They are excellent at strategic planning.

While a manager gets the job done, great leaders tap into the emotions of their employees.

“Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.”  

Become genuinely interested in other people. A great way to do this is to ask them open-ended questions.

Everyone wants to be liked, loved and accepted. When you fulfill that need for others, you are perceived as being influential.

When you manifest powerful body language, you are seen as more influential. 

The head is held high, the arms are loose, the shoulders are set back and the chest is out. Confident body language not only affects the way others see you but also the way you see yourself. 

Nelson Mandela was lauded as a courageous leader -- even when he was truly terrified. Like the time he astonished his bodyguard by calmly reading a newspaper while the plane he was flying on had engine failure.

Mandela himself, however, later confessed in private that he’d been truly terrified but refused to show it. Mandela knew that courage is a choice, and everyone can be courageous by learning to cope with your anxieties and fears every day. 

Niccolò Machiavelli held that using advisors well begins with knowing one’s own weaknesses and selecting advisors to offset them. It’s also necessary to know how to solicit advice the right way.

For Machiavelli, that meant showing advisors he valued their honest opinion and would not punish them for giving it. But, at the end of the day, he was the one calling the shots.

Probably the most influential step you can take toward creating a consistent practice of success is to invest in the systems that make your life run like a well-oiled machine.

Systems allow you to leverage your and other people’s time.

We all plateau. It’s frustrating but also a normal part of life. The key to bursting through ceilings, be they mental, physical or financial, is to hold yourself accountable. That doesn't mean accountable for doing it all, but accountable for getting help.

You’ll be surprised by how much further and faster a little help can take you. 

1. Empathy. Give trusted co-workers the benefit of the doubt by assuming the good in them. It goes a long way toward instilling loyalty and trust in you from your team.
2. Awareness. Care deeply about the welfare of the team members. Don't view them only as cogs in a machine.
3. Building community. Build community where both employees and customers can thrive.
4. Persuasion. Rely on persuasion rather than coercion to create internal motivation required to complete the task effectively.
5. Conceptualization. Servant-leading entrepreneurs focus on the big picture and don't get overly distracted by daily operations and short-term goals.
6. Growth. Care passionately about the personal and professional growth of each member of the team.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey, accounted for his limitations by issuing an order to ignore instructions he gave in the evenings – when he liked to carouse with his friends. But history has far more examples of leaders whose convictions of infallibility grow in proportion to their power, eventually leading to the failure of their plans.

A job can subtly warp your judgement so that you only see things from one perspective.

Think of Richard Nixon trying to use the institutions of the American government to shut down the Watergate scandal. Or the unexpectedly long American war in Vietnam.

The authoritarian leadership style:

• The authoritarian style of leadership requires leaders to have total decision-making power and absolute control over their subordinates. Servant leadership upends the top-down power structure.

Similar leadership styles:

• Ethical leadership urges leaders to show respect for the values and dignity of their subordinates. Servant leadership's emphasis on taking responsibility for the needs and desires of others.
• Participative leadership style requires leaders to involve subordinates in setting goals, building teams and solving problems but keep the final decision-making in their own hands. Servant leadership includes some of these elements.

• Listening. A servant leader seeks to identify the will of a group and helps to clarify that will.
• Empathy. A servant leader assumes the good intentions of co-workers and does not reject them as people.
• Healing. Understand part of their leadership responsibility is to help make whole employees whose sense of self is precarious.
• Awareness.
• Persuasion. Servant leaders rely on persuasion not positional authority or coercion, to convince others.
• Conceptualization. Balancing between thinking big and managing everyday reality.
• Foresight. The ability to understand the past and see the present clearly to predict how the future will unfold.
• Stewardship. CEOs, staffs and trustees all have a responsibility to hold the institution "in trust" for the greater good of society.
• Commitment to the growth of people. Feel a responsibility to nurture the growth of employees.
• Building community. Find ways to build community in their institutions.