What makes a good leader?

[apollolux]

Even before subs, I realized (after some reading and trial-and-error, of course) that a few qualities of being a good leader include, but are not limited to:

• confidence; this one is probably the biggest, BTW, as it affects pretty much everything else on and off this list; in business, however, you can fake it until you make it as long as you're making legitimate effort to improve
  
• decisiveness and assertiveness; the two are interrelated, and lacking one results in people losing faith in the other
  
• some arbitrary amount of charisma depending on the position; how else will people follow you?
  
• willingness to accept responsibility and actually doing it; too many ineffective so-called "leaders" pass the buck and only take or accept credit for successes, blaming others for failure
  
• ability to delegate effectively; it's one thing to delegate, it's another story entirely to do it effectively, so as soon as possible figure out the strengths and weaknesses of your team members and assign tasks and responsibilities accordingly; would you have someone who's weak at math running your books, doing the accounting?
  
• credit appropriately; as the leader you are ultimately responsible for the performance and results of your team (assuming you delegate effectively and focus the team accordingly), but if the results are outstanding do give credit to those who made it happen and as above be willing to accept responsibility for possible failure; putting aside ego allows the rising tide of success to raise the boats of your entire team
  
• be efficient in building your structure; if a team member is lagging or a weak link, deal with it as soon as possible, possibly with a 2 or 3 strikes rule; acknowledge they are human but be firm about expecting a certain level of performance from them, and if you do indeed have a strikes system follow through with it
  
• be as direct and honest as possible, within reason; give someone the "compliment sandwich" if needed, but if there's a deficiency in your system somewhere address it
  
• give and have reasonable expectations, and have accountability; this is probably the hardest one, as people tend to over-promise and under-deliver, usually because there isn't a system of accountability; I would rather, and do, over-estimate how long a project will take to account for "being human" and then if the project is satisfactory sooner than that, awesome, than say I can make a thing in two hours and it actually takes four because I didn't account for the amount of research needed to make a certain part of the process happen
  

That's just the stuff I knew and practiced before listening to subs; imagine what I can do if I ran AM6!

For reference, I had previously been elected president of my high school's computer club, elected vice-president of the organization that governs that school's extracurricular activities system, elected president of my college's ACM chapter, and lead developer of a digital media agency of which I was an equity partner.