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The primary function of a leader in a business enterprise is to develop and persuasively convey a vision of what the organization is to accomplish and to inspire and empower all those who work for the organization to make any optimal contribution to the fulfillment of that vision and to experience that in doing so, they are acting in alignment with their self-interest. The leader must be an imported and a persuaders.
The higher the self-esteem of the leader, the more likely it is that he or she can perform that function successfully. A mind that distrusts itself cannot implore the best in the minds of others. Neither can leaders inspire the best in others if their primary need, arising from their insecure, is to prove themselves right and other wrong.
It is a fallacy to say that a great leader should be egoless. A leader needs an ego sufficiently healthy that it does not experience itself as on the line in every encounter, so that the leader is free to be task and results oriented, not self-aggrandizement or elf protection oriented.
The basis passion in the best leaders he has studied is for self-expression. Their work is clearly a vehicle for self-actualization. Their desire is to bring who they are into the world, into reality, which I speak of as the practice of self-assertiveness.
