People positively respond to those who create frames of trust, hope, compassion and stability. As I told one president, who was complaining about the drama on his board, "Feelings are fine. Just don't be a co-producer of the play. Embers are everywhere. The mark of your leadership will be whether you fan them."

The theologian Meister Eckart said, “The outer work will never be great if the inner work is small.” In this change of season are you doing anything that has you as a beginner? What new opportunities await that will smooth the rough edges off your ego, by putting you in a place of discomfort and newness?

In my experience, great leaders continually reassess situations and only the very foolish or fundamentally flawed will hold a position long after wisdom or judgment informs otherwise. The ability to learn from our mistakes, admit error and change course is the first thing you teach MBA students or even your own child as a key to success.

In matters of substantial difference, don't question people's intentions, question their judgment. If your goal is to minimize the amount of polarization that exists in our culture, carefully watch your language. Questioning intention is often seen as an attack on integrity, and while you may feel passionately about your point of view, everyone feels that their intentions are good. No matter what.

You hear the word a lot. “We are in this together”, “We need to be a better team”, “We must all get on board”, “We need to better communicate with each other”—these are but a sampling of comments from almost all most any business setting on any given day. But what does “we” really mean?

Often when individuals refuse to change, the reason is that they derive benefits from not changing. Even if the benefit is small--like the comfort of facing a known situation rather than an unknown one--there is a value. If none existed, we'd change immediately!

Ultimately, to say you are sorry takes deep courage. It is the right and just thing to do. It is a flaw of huge proportions not to apologize, especially when the errors in judgment have cost so much. As a parent I would be embarrassed if I raised my kids to exhibit the levels of arrogance and certainty I have recently seen in all levels of our government dealing with the tragedy of Katrina.