Over the past 28 years, I've worked for three major corporations with many diverse leaders. Some have been highly effective, some incredibly dismal. I've also researched this subject extensively and here are three key findings.

Great leaders Influence other people by understanding them and gaining their trust and support.

Effective leaders have the ability to understand how other people think, which includes their desires, motivations, requirements and wants. Once people realize that you actually care, they will undoubtedly follow you. You must show that you are one of THEM and that you will lead them to bigger and greater accomplishments. Without gaining trust and support your leadership days are over.

Great leaders empower others to reach their full potential to support their vision.

All the extraordinarily successful owners of companies such as Google, Microsoft and Dell have empowered other great leaders to support their company and vision. They cannot run the company by themselves and they have a high belief in the capability of others. By empowering the best leaders around them, they also continuously learn and become even greater leaders themselves. This in turns creates a nucleus of great leaders and creates a mind-bogglingly successful company or team.

The great leaders always, always find a way to win.

Great leaders do not accept defeat. Winston Churchill or even the great sports leaders such as Michael Jordan always found ways to rise above the challenge. And their passion profoundly influenced everybody around them to rally together and become victorious. Great leaders will do everything in their power to prevail. Through uniting people towards a common cause, using a variety of people's skills and never accepting defeat, the greatest leaders are born.

1. Great leaders Influence other people by understanding them and gaining their trust and support.

2. Great leaders empower others to reach their full potential to support their vision.

3. The great leaders always, always find a way to win.

Please consider this article for your website, blog or ezine. Permission to reprint if by-line stays intact and links are activated on the Internet.

Terry Vermeylen

I truly believe that our current lifestyle leaves us with little time to breathe and reflect on the path we are taking in our lives.

Hi, my name is Terry and I am the founder of mylifechanges.com, an online value identification and goal setting enterprise. I have a great passion for life and self-improvement, thus I created this website to share my passion and to move people to improve their lives by living through their core values and setting lasting goals. My own personal core values include passion, wealth, beauty, action, compassion and appreciation. My primary passion is wealth building using common sense.

My idea for the website started with my passion and study of philosophy, psychology, self-improvement and business. I own and draw from an extensive collection of books on all these subjects. I also enjoy writing and will be publishing a newsletter focusing on value and goal setting, as well as a number of other self-help subjects. I have worked for three major corporations in a wide range of jobs and also clearly understand the corporate world. Most recently I worked as a business analyst performing process improvement.

It takes about 30 days to break in a new habit, so My Life Changes is an in-your-face, self-motivating tool, with bright colors highlighting each day taken towards that new goal, habit or choice.

My Life Changes has added on a timeline section, journal and e-mail reminders as complementary tools to your quest for a better life. A prototype of My Life Changes was used for over a year before settling on the current design. It has been a genuine labour of love.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Please don't hesitate to ask any questions concerning the web site or any of my self-improvement philosophies. I will be more than happy to answer.

All the best,

Terry Vermeylen