However, as a leader, if you can add results to relationships and develop a team of people who like each other and get things done, you have created a powerful combination.

As you and I grow and improve as leaders, so will those we lead. We need to remember that when people follow us, they can only go as far as we go. If our growth stops, our ability to lead will stop along with it.

At least once a year I'd ask Steve to point out anything he thought I was doing that was wrong or weaknesses in my leadership that he believed might have me headed for trouble. After a couple of years of this, Steve once said, 'John, you are the most successful person I work with, yet you are the only one who invites critism. Why?' I don't trust anyone with power that can't be checked, I answered. Especially me.

No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you're playing a solo game, you'll always lose out to a team.

The writer of Proverbs observed that sharp people sharpen one another, just as iron sharpens iron. If you want to be a sharp thinker, be around sharp people.

My friend Dan Reiland says, "A genuine friend encourages and challenges us to live out our best thoughts, honor our purest motives, and achieve our most significant dreams." That's what we need to do with the important people in our lives.

Success for the leader is a single victory. However, when the protégé experiences success, it becomes a double win.

Good ideas must be shared, improved upon with the help of other good thinkers, and then they must be implemented and acted upon.

How to prepare someone for leadership: I do it. I do it and you watch. You do it and I watch. You do it. You do it and someone else watches.

If you don't already have a mentor, go out and find one. If you can't get someone to help you in person, begin the process by reading books. That's where I got started. The main thing is to get the process under way.

Unless you want to carry the whole load yourself, you need to be developing leaders.

Spend 80 percent of your time on the most promising 20 percent of the potential leaders around you.