For Inauguration Day, we are reading a lot about President Obama and his second term.  In Managing the Oval Office by David Rothkopf (David Rothkopf is the chief executive of the FP Group, the publisher of Foreign Policy magazine, and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace). In this piece from the New York Times Sunday Review, a rather “less-than-enthusiastic” take on President Obama’s leadership, we find a really great, truly accurate summary of the tasks of effective leadership:

Here’s the quote:

Selecting a diverse team, creating a system in which ideas surface, listening to those ideas and then empowering others to put them into action are the cornerstones of good management — and of effective leadership.

And here, listed, are the four tasks.

Task #1 — selecting a diverse team
Task #2 — creating a system in which ideas surface
Task #3 — listening to those ideas, and then
Task #4 — empowering others to put them into action

So, if you are in a position of leadership, it’s time to do a little self-analysis.  How are you doing on these four?

And if you work for a leader, you might want to share this article.