To accomplish goals, organizations of humans rely on the leadership skills of their members in leadership roles. Effective leadership is vital to the efficiency and productivity of the organization's efforts.

Organizational members also report that effective leadership is the most important factor in their quality of working life. Surveys have shown a person's immediate supervisor is the single most important influence on worker satisfaction and productivity. It's more important than money, and more important the working conditions.

New leaders face a challenge when they take on responsibility for the work of others. They find themselves playing new roles and adjusting to new relationships.

This blog takes the view that leadership is effective or ineffective, for those are things that we can measure, not good or bad.

This blog is not going to make you or a child an effective leader. You are not going to find a few simple rules to become an effective leader. If leadership were as easy as that almost everyone would be an effective leader. The only rule of thumb is: it all depends.Leadership differs with the leader, the group, and the situation.

• Leaders are all different. No leader can takeover another leader's job, and do it the same way.
• Groups are different too. When a leader changes groups, they changes the way they lead. Leadership is a function of the group. Because without the group there's no need for the leader. You learn leadership best by working with groups. That is something like learning swimming best by getting into the water.
• Situations differ too. The same leader with the same group must change with conditions. All situations are different. Leadership actions that work in one situation may not work in another.

As swimming is a matter of coordinating separate body movements into a pattern to effectively move the whole body through the water, so leadership is a matter of coordinating separate skills and attitudes into patterns that will achieve effects desired by the group and its leader.

Because leadership is also learned experientially, this blog is really only a reference or a partial map. The ideas herein must be tested with other people to find out what works best for you.

The arts of communication and thinking are designed as a means for action. Application of this knowledge to the real world is essential. No training is complete, nor even particularly valuable, unless a student uses what they've learned. So, read this blog with an eye toward application.

Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing. ~ William Shakespeare

Learning by your own experience is good, but it's more efficient to learn from someone else's experiences and build on it. If you allow it, this blog can teach you lessons without the pain of repeating certain mistakes yourself.