Short form I did for a LinkedIn Leadership summit; I thought it turned out pretty relevant, so I thought I'd share.
On Leadership
Leadership requires bravery, curiosity, humility, but not just these elements; anyone can be put in front of wisdom, insight, but it takes someone foundationally prepared to recognize the value of this information. Because of the sheer dearth of information required for leaders to absorb and make value, make meaning of, I would say that leadership requires not only curiosity, but a selective memory.
Selective memory as a notion is denigrated, it's imagined as projection as a perjorative, and the term is relegated to a limitation, when if taken advantage of with a good mentality and the right toolkit, a selective memory can be a leaders greatest strength. Tools such as interpretation are not equal across leaders; though many who rise to leadership are gifted, even for the most talented among us, these broad skills and techniques are required to be refined through years and decades of study, exposure to experiential situations that cultivate acumen, and relationships where the participants learn and grow together, with the leader encouraging a mentality first within themselves of service and reflection that will spread using to the leaders own behavior as example for those that he intends to lead.
Circling back to the concept of selective memory as a strength, I would say some of the most effective leaders going forward in the emerging environment will be those that can let the information wash over them, they should have such a staggering background of knowledge, solidified and usefully cross referenced and categorized, that they are able to witness the majority of information they are encountering as reiteration, this will allow them to focus on the differences, the outliers, the anomalies, the potentialities that others do not see, even in plain sight where others have access.
That successful leaders focused on innovation, covert advantage, and anticipating and accommodating to take good advantage of changes as they occur should make good use of these techniques will be required of the leaders most sought after. The foundational elements we typically prize in leaders, you can find extolled elsewhere, but they are taken for granted in good leaders; what separates great leaders from good ones are the traits and skills shown above.