These are my five principles, as influenced by this experience:

1. Accept that leadership (and management) is situational and who you need to be changes frequently. 
   • As a manager, you set and explain the target, and support your team to achieve it.
   • As a leader, you point through the fog towards the general direction, motivate the team to define the precise goal and coach them to reach the destination.
   • As a leader of leaders, your mission is to ensure the environment and the vision is in place for other leaders to consistently and scalably rise to the occasion and make point #2 happen without your involvement.

2. The most efficient and consistent path to top results is to enable others to be even more successful than yourself.  Let your colleagues, teams and partners succeed. Help them to take the front stage and to be the heroes. This also applies to customers: making your customer famous rather than using the customer to make you famous.

3. The only certainty is uncertainty and change.  Help people unlearn and re-learn at least as much as they learn. (Alvin Toffler’s books are an inspiration for me in this respect)

4. Chasing yearly and quarterly results is important, but being true to yourself and to the legacy you want to leave behind is more fundamental. As a leader, you have the privilege and the responsibility to build something positive, which will stand the test of time.  Don’t waste that opportunity.

5. For everyday decisions follow your head, your heart and your gut-feeling. In that order. For really big decisions, it is the other way around.

Now comes the “tiny” challenge of always executing on these principles in a consistent manner - and the only way to get better is practice and experience. I would love to hear about your own personal leadership principles, experiences and advice.