Andy,
I am blown away by your blogpost. I have certainly found your highlighted sentence to be true in my parenting context.
"I am convinced that we cannot become the parents and spouses and leaders we aspire to be when we hold a grudge, however slight, against ourselves."
After a rather difficult experience of launching our emerging young adult children, I struggled with the forgiveness factor. I am currently writing a book about Parenting (or Unparenting) Adults-in-training. I could not have begun the writing if I had not forgiven our children and myself.
The inability to forgive is not only the poison of relationships, it is also the debris that clogs the creativity pipeline.
Thank you for this post.
Coach Theresa

Indeed, vision tops all leadership decisions. It gives the organization a destination to aim for. Your previous post in Feb 2007 amplifies this very well. I would say, however, vision is not always an individual's vision. Often it is the product that results from listening to, consulting with and collaborating with a broad representation of stakeholders. Just a few days ago, I went to hear a live interview of Carol Bartz, the Yahoo CEO. She spent two solid months in 45-minute listening sessions when she began at Yahoo.
Thank you, Michael, for sharing so much of your insights.

Fabulous post on Authentic Leadership. There was a time when leadership was defined more like the military model - the hierarchy determines who leads. Leadership in the last few decades, at least in America, has evolved into a more egalitarian model because of the knowledge (due in part to technological advance) explosion. Peter Drucker calls people in the workplace "knowledge workers". In the end, leaders do exercise authority and influence simultaneously. To be effective and authentic, I think influence needs to be the dominant conduit.