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An excerpt from “Qualities Needed for Leadership” by Bill Johonnesson

“Constructing a bridge from Point A to Point B requires an architectural engineer to first be capable of imagining that bridge. Before a table can be designed and built, it has to be imagined and the decision to build it must be made and an intention must exist to motivate the construction. That puts imagination, decision and intention as senior to physical mechanics.

“So what does this have to do with executives and personnel? In this way: If an executive has a personality trait that is chronically or compulsively critical, he will imagine the personnel to be inept, lazy and doing their best to make the executive look bad. Executives with such a character flaw are a liability to have around. If you envision your front-desk clerk as a boob, you are likely to get just that – a boob for a front-desk clerk. The Captain Blighs of this world are irascible, irate and distrustful of those in their charge and they very often cause a lessening of cooperation from their subordinates to the point of sparking a mutiny. The original Captain Bligh could have used the points of leadership outlined below; indeed, if he had followed these advices, there would never have been a mutiny and Pitcairn, the island where the mutineers settled, may have remained an uninhabited island.

“In truth, the vast majority of employees are very decent people who are willing to work hard and diligently at what they understand is needed and wanted of the management echelons above them.