Are you successful or a "success fool"?

Jagdish Parikh an alumni of HBS writes about what it takes to be a leader :

According to Jagdish Parikh (HBS MBA '54), the gap between what everyone learns about leadership and what they actually experience exposes a fundamental flaw in leadership models today. The qualities that genuine leaders possess—and what makes inspiring leaders so rare—are not innate characteristics. Rather, he believes, they are skills that aspiring leaders can and should actually teach themselves, such as self-knowledge and self-mastery. Self-knowledge and self-mastery can be developed through conscientious practice.

"Unless one knows how to lead oneself, it would be presumptuous to lead others," Parikh said. And, he added, "If you don't know how to lead yourself, someone else will."

To him leading means sharing and facilitating. "Sharing what? And facilitating what? Information, ideas, events, and things. ... Leadership is not a quality, strategy, or tactic, in my opinion. It's a way of life, a way of being."

"In formal education we learn nothing about feelings, but we exist at a feeling level. We cannot change just by wishing. We must discover ourselves. What are you referring to when you say 'I'? What is your organizational chart of yourself? Life is a culmination of experiences, mind, and emotions. Feelings come and go but as individuals we are unchanging."

"Detached involvement is the essence of leadership."

A lot of the ideas seem to come directly from eastern philosophies. Better still read The Buddha.