I have been thinking about all the great points my friends made about leadership as part of the Top 3 meme (see all responses in this post). As is my way, I am trying to pull some themes out of what was written, which is not an easy task with thirty-six items mentioned, representing a mix of traits, topics, and themes related to leadership.

As I'm looking at it, though, I am still seeing things in threes. Specifically, what emerged from my first look at the responses was the very traditional triad that I first heard used in diversity training long ago: head, heart, hands.

That is, the work of diversity is comprehensive. It's about thinking, it's about feeling, and it's about doing. If you focus too much on one part of it, you usually get mediocre results. The same, obviously, can be said about leadership and developing as a leader.

Head, heart, hands. Thinking, feeling, doing.

For each of those three areas, I saw two different angles covered in what people wrote about leadership:

Thinking: Self and Systems
Feeling: Courage and Love
Doing: Talk and Walk

I'm really happy love made the list.