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Can leadership be learned? If so, what can the world's best leaders teach us about leading well? In this episode of The Faith & Work Podcast, we hear from Michael Lindsay, president of Gordon College and author of View from The Top. Michael shares about his study of leaders spanning 10 years and 550 interviews with former presidents, cabinet members and Fortune 500 CEOs. Through his research, Michael discovered five qualities that the best leaders share, including customs, coaches, challenges, confidence, and crisis.

"How do you become the kind of leader that you are proud of at the end of your life, so that you pursue not just the resume virtues, as David Brooks talks about, but also the eulogy virtues that you would want people to say when you've passed? It starts with the customs that we build into our life, the practices and the habits.""My hunch is that each of us, if given the time, could go around the room and share the story of one, two, three or four folks...who played a formative role at a critical moment in our lives and shaped who we became. I found that to be the case for every single person I interviewed. 550 people, each of whom could name at least one coach who made a key difference.""Leaders spend a lot of time trying to keep bad things from becoming worse, and you never talk about those things. I became convinced that a leader's best work rarely sees the light of day. That's, in some ways, the toll of leading. You don't always get the credit."

Check out Cultivating Leadership, our latest course with Michael on Scatter.org.Get Michael's book, View from the Top.*Download the episode transcript.

*–Purchase with purpose. Amazon donates to Denver Institute when you shop at smile.amazon.com.