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Winston Churchill once declared, “To be a great leader, you must be a scientist, historian and soldier.”

James Humes, The Rylas Professor of Language and Leadership at the University of Southern Colorado and author of “Churchill: Speaker of the Century” explains, “Scientist... because you must examine demographics and statistics, and be able to project them with imagination into the future. Historian... because you must recognize patterns of history and know how they’re being replicated at the present. Soldier... because you must be courageous enough to take action today — that will prevent disaster in the future.”

Churchill’s perspective and Humes’ explanation are fascinating and they helped me realize the great leaders I’ve had the pleasure to work with over the past 26 years share common qualities.

Leaders deliver a dynamic dozen

Great leaders:

1. Create a culture of trust and integrity; 2. Are flexible and willing to change, improve, enhance and upgrade; 3. Make tough decisions knowing some folks ain’t gonna like it; 4. Value their people and their knowledge, creativity and enthusiasm; 5. Challenge the status quo; 6. Are highly disciplined, especially about time or self-management; 7. Delegate to others who can “do it” faster, better or smarter (and then get out of their way); 8. Make today meaningful, yet always have a vision for tomorrow; 9. Seek honest and hard-hitting outside counsel (they know what they don’t know and want to hear what they haven’t heard); 10. Are focused on the acquisition, satisfaction and retention of quality clients, customers and employees; 11. Listen, listen, listen; 12. Ask intelligent questions to generate significant results.

Leaders learn

Here are a few questions, I urge leaders to ask their team:

a. What are your goals, how can I / others help you achieve them?

b. If we could help you and your team with only three things to produce even greater results, what would those be?

c. What trends have you seen over the past 30 – 60 days? How do you think they’ll impact our business / your team? What’s your game plan to deal with them?

d. What opportunities do you see that you’re not taking advantage of?

e. What business books, DVDs or CDs have you read, watched or listened to recently? What did you learn? How did you apply this new knowledge to yourself / your team? What were the results?

f. What are our competitors doing you wish you were doing?

g. What keeps you up at night? How can you / others eliminate that headache? What would the impact be? What winning ways will you implement, to also become a great leader?

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Jeff Blackman is a speaker, author, success coach, broadcaster and lawyer who lives part-time on Marco Island. His clients call him a “business-growth specialist.” Send an e-mail to jeff@jeffblackman.com or go to www.jeffblackman.com to subscribe to his free e-letter.