Skills and experience might land you a leadership position with a large business organization, but they don’t make you a true leader.
Leadership comes from inside—and the greatest leaders first question themselves before they tackle the world around them.
Develop an inner clarity. Understand your bright and dark sides, your personal strengths and weakness. Self-comprehension is a fundamental precondition necessary for real leadership.
In the 6th century BC Thales, one of the Seven Sages of ancient Greece, is reported to have offered the famous instruction “know thyself.” This idea of self-inquiry as a mandatory feature of a well-lived life rapidly attained proverbial status among the Greeks. In fact, it was even deemed worthy of inscription on the wall of Apollo’s temple at Delphi. Sayings based on great wisdom, such as this one, all have one thing in common, regardless of the time and place where they occur: they all share one thing in common: they are encouragements to engage in conduct which is demanding and out of the ordinary but offers prospects of great reward. Thales’ teaching is a classic illustration of this point.
Over the course of IBM’s ongoing evolution, Chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty has abided by the motto, “never protect your past.”
Our beliefs and assumptions are skewed by personal biases and not to be fully trusted. Often they haven't been tested or revised based upon new information. They reflect partial knowledge and are only partially wise. Resist acting instinctively on your beliefs and assumptions, and open your mind to the subject's potential complexity. Before registering your opinion, enter into a state of not knowing. Zen Buddhists call this the "beginner's mind." Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey (Immunity to Change, Harvard Business School Publishing, 2009) would describe this as moving from the "self-authorizing mind" to the "self-transforming mind." 
Bushido refers not only to martial rectitude, but to personal rectitude: Rectitude or Justice, is the strongest virtue of Bushido. A well-known samurai defines it this way: ‘Rectitude is one’s power to decide upon a course of conduct in accordance with reason, without wavering; to die when to die is right, to strike when to strike is right.’ Another speaks of it in the following terms: ‘Rectitude is the bone that gives firmness and stature. Without bones the head cannot rest on top of the spine, nor hands move nor feet stand. So without Rectitude neither talent nor learning can make the human frame into a samurai.’