Thank you for an excellent article, Sarah. The Secret to Successful Leadership applies to each and every one of us as we journey through life. Kind regards, Bobby

Merry Christmas and Happy Wishes for a Kind and Lovely New Year *** ok well yes that is a bit a positive thinking - most of all thanks for your gentle breeze that helps bring me to back into my breath, seeing and feeling the love that expresses in one second the deep unfathomable display before us...

Those are qualities of a good leader. Hopefully, those are the kind of people we will choose as leaders.

But it has not always proven to be so. And we have no real way of knowing exactly what a person's relationship with their self is.

So I might substitute the words "good leadership" there instead of successful leadership, because obviously some people with pretty low levels of integrity within themselves have become very successful leaders - successful in rallying whole countries into doomed world-conquering schemes (a la Hitler), successful in leading a group of devout followers to commit suicide (Jim Jones, Heaven's Gate), successful in destroying one's own country (Robert Mugabe).

And of course there's GWB and Dick Cheney - very successful in acquiring power and attaining the highest levels of elected officialdom in the free world - but would you call them "good leaders"?

The type of leader you are envisioning here evokes in me the image of the current Dalai Lama. He seems to have spent the necessary time and training to master his relationship to his own mind/ego before becoming a highly successful leader, not only of his Tibetan followers, but a living example of a high-consciousness leadership style to many millions more people all over the world.

So here's an intent for 2009: to be careful considering who we choose as leaders and check as best we can their level of self-integrity before handing them the power to make decisions that directly affect a lot of other people.

I would like to offer a different perspective on the issue of "the challenges of knowing self" and " leadership".

I think our "myopic view" of " self" naturally hinders our vision to completely find and understand "self".

Just imagine your " finger tip" ( self) it can touch( see) everything in the universe but " itself"

There is so much you can learn from observing your "self". How about "the dark side of the moon"

I would suggest that we are continuously learning and observing. We are equally learning about how things are and work just as much by observing self and others we have done that even before we were here! this constant interaction and counter action is very basis of leading us to realize our potential! That is the lesson 1.

Lesson 2 is to submit to the most profound universal principle" that we are a very integral part a vast inter connected of a universal quilt. Once that transformation takes place your love of " self " and "ourself" becomes unconditional.

In the next stage we learn the universal principles of fairness and justice. Then great leaders learn how the universe works( knowledge/experience/vision). Once that is fully developed we begin to identify other great leaders/observers who can help us to fully understand our " collective potential and vision".

The game is just beginning now!
Farahmand Kalayeh

Given the recent failues of business and political leadership there is a longing for leaders who are more self-aware, without which there is no self-management. Out of this crisis of leadership there may come better leaders who are more intent on serving the common good than personal fame, forture and power. It may be that we'll turn to the notion that the reward of leadership in is the success of others - an idea advanced by Max DePree and Robert Greenleaf.