Patience

Patience is an acquired skill, though some seem to have been born with a fair amount of it (I was NOT one of those).

The best leaders I know have learned to be extremely patient, almost to a fault.  Why?  They understand clearly the negative impact of impatience.  

Here are some of the downstream effects of impatience:

• Important decisions get made without critical data.
• Actions are taken based in fear rather than thoughtfulness.
• Relationships suffer (tangibly and intangibly).
• The "authority" card gets played way too often, resulting in disempowerment.

None of those are good things for healthy organizations.  Given all those downsides, the best leaders I know move with extreme deliberateness.  

The costs of impatience are (in the words of my grandson) GINORMOUS, sometimes even unrecoverable.