I'm designing a presentation for a Leadership Conference and the subject is simply 'the essential ingredients for leadership success'.

As simple as it sounds, I keep changing the ingredients for my magical mixture. There are great books which expose the Top Skills, there is plenty of research pouring through my Twitter feed, during meetings and workshops which I facilitate I get to listen and observe leaders talk about their leadership journey and then there's my experience!

So, you can understand that to identify just a few ingredients is my big challenge for this morning!

Anyhow, my 'current' penciled recipe ingredients include:

Agility - taking time out to think creatively and engage diverse stakeholders to solve problems

Building Relationships - meeting new people and involving them in the purpose of the organisation

Culture Creator - shaping the culture by role-modelling continuously the behaviours talked about

Digitally Connected - communicating with people horizontally rather than vertically

Emotionally Intelligent - being self aware of how feelings influence thoughts and decisions

Its a coincidence that the alphabet came into play and now, in my research, I keep finding other deserving leadership ingredients which begin with the same letters. Should I replace any of these with: Being Bold, Decisive, Engaging and Assertive?

What would you include on your ingredients's list?

Whilst context is important to understand when you're engaging with a group (my audience are 'women in local government'), I find that this list could cut across any industry sector. What do you think?