For the most part, people earn their leadership roles by demonstrating other job-related skills. There you were, just minding your own business, fulfilling your duties in accounting, production, or sales, when someone put you in charge.

Ask for guidance, and you're likely to get truly poor leadership advice. In fact, countless management sages advised me during the early days of my corporate career, "Leadership is not a popularity contest. Your employees don't have to like you; they just have to respect you." Accordingly, in my first few management roles I felt a bit spineless when-in my heart-I truly cared what my employees thought of me as a leader, and as a person.

Watch this short video and see why leadership can feel like a scary business. Without good advice-let's face it-we often make it up as we go along. Bookmark this post on del.icio.us