When we think about leadership, what comes to mind? Usually, we focus on what are the best attributes and skills of an effective leader. These include such things as emotional intelligence, resiliency, modeling behaviors, accountability, competency, leadership styles, etc. Leaders need to be capable of using all these skills well.[i] Sometimes, though, we lose sight of why all these skills are needed.  In other words, what are leaders trying to accomplish, and what are the critical tasks that must be done to get there?  I found a great answer to this question almost twenty years ago from Bob Lewis in his book Keep the Joint Running, a Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology.[ii] Here is what he wrote:

Effective leaders master eight tasks:

  1. Setting direction: Leaders must be clear about their organization’s mission, vision, and strategy. The mission is the reason the organization exists – what it’s supposed to accomplish. Vision is a clear and precise account of how tomorrow will be different from yesterday. Strategy is how the leader expects to deliver on their organization’s mission and make the vision real.
  • Delegation: Effective staff get things done. Effective leaders build organizations that get things done for them. The process of getting staff to do the leader’s work and do it well is the essence of leading.
  • Staffing: To build organizations that get things done, effective leaders must be adept at determining who to recruit, hire, train, and promote so the organization is staffed with people they can delegate to.
  • Decision-making: Decisions commit or deny staff, time, and money. Everything else is just talking. Decent leaders don’t necessarily make good decisions, but they do take the steps needed so good decisions get made.
  • Motivating: A point not worth bothering to make is that motivated staff work harder and better than apathetic staff. Leaders motivate by (1) avoiding de-motivating employees; and then (2) energizing them.
  • Managing team dynamics: Most of the work that gets done gets done by teams – collections of employees who trust each other and who are aligned to a common purpose. The best leaders don’t consider themselves part of the teams they lead, but do take responsibility for creating the conditions that result in trust and alignment.
  • Instituting culture: Culture is how we do things around here – not on a procedural level, but on an attitudinal one. Employees who share the same unconscious assumptions and thought processes collaborate more effectively than those who don’t.
  • Communicating: For the most part, the way leaders accomplish the first seven tasks is by communicating – the eighth task. Communicating means they listen, inform, persuade, and facilitate.

I found this list to be a great guide to what was truly important to focus on as a leader. I urge you to take some time to review how you and other leaders in your organization are doing at mastering these leadership tasks. You are probably not totally proficient in all eight tasks (I wasn’t, and who is, really?), so the goal is to always work on improving your skills over time to be the best you can be.

[i] In 2025 Janet Cornell  published a terrific series of 14 Court Leader posts on this subject, “Court Leadership and Professional Competencies.” For example, Court Leadership and Professional Competencies, Issue #10 – Skills of an Effective Court Manager – Court Leader

[ii] Books – IS Survivor

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Published by Norman Meyer

After 38 years as a trial court administrator in the state and federal courts in the U.S., Norman continues to write, teach, and otherwise participate in judicial administration activities world-wide. In particular, he is active in the International Association for Court Administration (IACA) as a past Regional Vice President and Advisory Board member, in the National Association for Court Management (NACM) as a Past President (having received NACM's Award of Merit), and as an Associate of the Justice Speakers Institute. Norman has extensive experience working on international Rule of Law projects, particularly in the Russian Federation, Serbia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Albania. Norman is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of New Mexico (Political Science and Russian Studies), and he received the Master of Science in Judicial Administration from the University of Denver College of Law.

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