What makes a good leader?
If we’re going to talk about leaders and leadership, it’s important to know what those words mean. I do a lot of reflection and thinking about things, and my initial ideas of what a leader is and does were rather vague. “It depends” isn’t a great answer; it would lead to lots of conversations about various cases and scenarios but wouldn’t get to the heart of a thriving leadership. While there are differences between being a thought leader or a song leader or a Fortune 50 CEO, it’s clear that there are core practices and patterns common to leaders.
Leader: A working definition
For a working definition, let’s start here. I’m sure we’ll evolve this over time as we work together here at Miriam’s Wisdom.
A leader is one who formulates a vision aligned with their beliefs and values; who thinks, plans, and acts to bring their vision to life; who embraces change rather than defending against it; who extends empathy and dignity to others; who admits to mistakes and asks for help; who celebrates the diverse perspectives of others; and who tends to their own physical, mental, and emotional health.
I realize that covers a lot of territory. When we think about leadership, those first two qualities might seem obvious. The others may seem less apparent. So let’s look at each one.
A vision aligned with beliefs and values
Working in business, you might hear a lot about vision. Top executives formulate a vision for the business and develop a strategy to carry it out. Founders of start-up companies have a vision for a product or service, so they work to create and sell it. Here’s the thing: you don’t have to be an executive or entrepreneur to have a vision for your work, whether it’s paid, volunteer, or in the home. It’s an exercise in inspiration and aspiration, in asking “what if” and following the ideas. A vision may be a small, two-week goal or it may be a five-year plan.
The second part of this leadership quality can be trickier. Many of us don’t spend time identifying and reflecting on what we believe and what we value. Even those who do spend time with their beliefs and values might not be able to articulate what the words mean or why they matter. The thing is, if your vision is to successfully rob a bank but your values emphasize ethics and compassion, then you might struggle to enact this vision. It might be a daydream, but having so much conflict with your values means it really needs to stay just a daydream.
We’ll spend much more time on beliefs, values, and vision at Miriam’s Wisdom. There’s plenty of great inner tools and techniques we can practice in this area.
Thinking, planning, acting
A leader thinks, plans, and acts to bring their vision to life. That might be pretty obvious to you, and there’s also some real treasures lurking under the surface. Thinking is important, taking time to be thoughtful about decisions. One thing I admire about others is frequently the ability to think before speaking or acting. I often find myself in situations that demand a quick decision, and I don’t always pause for a moment to take a thoughtful approach. Do I understand the need? Are there aspects I’m wondering about? Are there assumptions I’m making?* What are the implications of taking this path? of that path instead? Considering these questions may lead me away from the quick-fire decision I was ready to give. Taking a moment to be thoughtful before speaking can also be helpful. Nobody wants to bring a question to their leader and get a frustrated, angry, or even profane response. So let’s decide now not to do this to each other.
While taking 60 seconds to respond thoughtfully to a question or decision is important, taking more time for planning is even more important for success. We need to consider assumptions, risks, open questions, uncertainties. Depending on the scope of the vision, we may plan at different levels: identifying what must be accomplished to bring it to reality. As we think through our plan, we may find places that are particularly risky and spend some extra time there asking “what if” questions. When we are thoughtful and spend time in planning, then our actions can be decisive and measured. If asked about them, we can explain the how and the why. And when others notice that your decisions and actions are informed and thoughtful, they will pay attention to what you’re doing: they will see you as a leader they want to follow.
Embracing change
There are two primary approaches we can take to change: we can defend against it, or we can embrace it and move with it. Only one of those is inspiring and exciting; those who lead from embracing change tend to elicit behaviors of confidence, competence, and encouragement. The other approach is based on fear and uncertainty, and those who lead from a place of fear tend to incite anger, frustration, and non-productive behaviors. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like spending time surrounded by anger and frustration and fear. Even if a great deal of change is coming, I’d much prefer an environment of welcoming and encouragement.
One of the inspirations for Miriam’s Wisdom is Stephanie Ockerman of Agile Socks. She opened an email once by asking if we can live with both uncertainty and opportunity at the same time. Uncertainty means risk of bad stuff happening, but it also means the opportunity for good things to happen. If we close ourselves off to uncertainty, then we may never see the opportunities that are all around us. Being open to change and embracing it doesn’t mean we have to let the wind blow us wherever it takes us. If we’re thinking and planning and we’re being thoughtful about decision-making, then we will make informed decisions about the change and uncertainty we face. Truly vital and influential leaders frequently ask themselves if they’re doing the right thing, if they’re doing it the best way, if there are risks they haven’t considered, if there are opportunities they might take advantage of. They aren’t defending against change but learning and growing from it.
Empathy and dignity
Leaders extend empathy and dignity to others. Whether those others are business partners, employees, customers, volunteers, or their spouse and children, a good leader recognizes their common personhood and treats them as the unique and precious treasure that they are. Doing this for the millions of households using your brand of paper towels is different from doing it for the three others in your family. Empathy for millions of customers might mean redesigning your project packaging so that it’s easier to open. And empathy for your family might mean playing with building bricks for a half hour before dinner or pausing to tell your partner how much you appreciate their support.
When we talk about employees and volunteers, there are legal aspects that we must fulfill. But generally, unless we have cause to suspect an individual of being a bad actor, there’s no reason to act as though they are… and every reason to assume that they’re doing the best they can with the knowledge and tools they have. It inspires trust when we understand and assume that our colleagues and employees have full and meaningful lives outside work, when we can understand that a sick parent may consume their attention or assume that their migraine is real.
This is an orientation to the world, rather than something we can turn on and off like a light. You can expect to see inner tools in future articles that can nurture our capabilities for empathy and kindness to others.
Admitting mistakes and asking for help
Good leaders have intellectual humility. They know they aren’t perfect. They know they’ve made bad decisions or other mistakes. And they can admit to this. When you hear a leader tell a story about a bad mistake or business decision, you can expect to hear what they learned from it, as well as how you might be able to learn from it without having to commit the same blunder. Good leaders also learn how to judge when they will not be able to achieve some goal with the resources they have, when they will have to ask for help.
Celebrating diverse perspectives
I know that, since 2025, diversity has become a keyword associated with “woke ideology” (whatever that means). However, we truly are stronger when we welcome perspectives and contributions from people who are different from ourselves. This doesn’t have to mean race or ethnicity. People who think differently or hold different assumptions from ourselves give us important perspectives about how products might be used or how changes affect people in different ways.
I have a friend who is very sensitive to sensory stimulation, and going to the movies can be challenging for her. The contrast between the dark room and the bright screen is activating, and the loud sound system can send her over the edge or simply leave her exhausted. It’s because of others with a similar perspective that my employer incorporated a sound masking system into our open floor-plan office; it helps workers to feel able to speak without being overheard as well as to work without the stimulation and interruption.
What other perspectives are we missing? And what opportunities will it create to learn about them?
Committed to their health
Finally, an effective leader takes care of their physical, mental, and emotional health. Further, they model these behaviors for those around them, because they’re that important. Let the appointments for your annual physical or your semiannual dental checkup be public on your calendar. Keep a couple reusable water bottles at your desk, and encourage people to bring water with them into meetings. Don’t skip lunch. Empathy for yourself is every bit as important as empathy for everyone else.
There are four elements that carry a lot of weight in all areas of health: eat, hydrate, sleep, move. I recently had about six weeks where my sleep was terrible; everything felt even more stressful and overwhelming than usual until I got the help I needed to bring my sleep back under control. While health is about so much more than these four basics, intentionally maintaining focus on eating, hydration, sleep, and movement is foundational to self-care. So yes, in addition to inner tools about vision and values and change and intellectual humility, Miriam’s Wisdom will also publish tools to encourage maintaining your health.
Wrapping it up
It’s a lot, to be sure. Leadership is a broad topic, and it means many things to many people. Here, I’ve tried to distill the common aspects of leadership from across contexts and fields into a working definition with general application.
A leader is one who formulates a vision aligned with their beliefs and values; who thinks, plans, and acts to bring their vision to life; who embraces change rather than defending against it; who extends empathy and dignity to others; who admits to mistakes and asks for help; who celebrates the diverse perspectives of others; and who tends to their own physical, mental, and emotional health.
How many of these things are you already doing? Which ones seem easy to you, and which seem challenging? Is there something that always trips you up? Please share a comment and let us know—we’ll take it into account as we plan future articles.
* Bonus story
Once my daughter was talking with her dad, and she used the word assume. Then she said, “I wouldn’t want to make an *ss out of you.” Dad said, “Or me!” And she replied, “That’s what I said.”
He didn’t think this was funny, but I do!