the essence of leadership...

Effective leadership will elicit excellence in people.  However, when a person is not a good leader, the result is not a neutral outcome.  Often, when a person is weak at leading others, the results swing in the opposite direction.  In other words, the opposite of excellence is not simply being "good", the opposite can be a knee-jerk reaction which not only suppresses excellence, but leads to apathy.  Too many companies are filled with people who, after becoming disillusioned, become apathetic - just showing up and going through the motions.

People often talk about "doing the right thing", and while that's a good thing to strive for, when the dynamics of the actions aren't taken into consideration, the results can be less than desirable.  Effective leadership is also not just a matter of doing those "right things" in the right way.  For example, your business can implement a marketing strategy that's been proven to work and execute it perfectly.  But you may not get the results you expect.  If the dynamic created by that strategy between company and prospect isn't in alignment with how prospects perceive the company, then not only will the marketing results suffer, but the unintended dynamics may actually drive prospects away.

Here's another illustration of the importance of dynamics.  If a leader learns to communicate cleanly - in other words, he or she acquires the ability to chose the best words to say - one might argue that they've honed their communication skills.  But how they deliver their message is as important as the words used.  Not only that, but the most effective manner for a leader to deliver their message will vary from recipient to recipient.  The resulting dynamic will vary depending on how and to whom the message is delivered.

Some of the dynamics which will either bring forth excellence or suppress it relate to: