Thank you for your contributions to the LeadChange blog, Tal.  After I read this piece I looked at your profile and noticed you have done a lot of writing for the blog.  It is important that we have many leadership voices out there helping move the conversation forward.

As I read your piece, I was struck by how hard it sounds.  "There is only one person responsible for the quality of the life you live. That person is you."   This seems overly simplistic.  Everything in life is a complex combination of genetics, personal action, and outside forces.  Perhaps this is just a matter of semantics, but I disagree with your 100%.  We are not always responsible for the quality of our lives.  Life sometimes deals us bad hands, and our interactions with others are not always controllable.

What I think we are responsible for is our reaction to the hand we are dealt.  Every scenario, both good and bad, gives us choices and those choices have consequences.  I think what you are getting at is that we need to own the consequences of our choices as best we can, even though some consequences are also unanticipated and uncontrollable.

The reason that I even care about this is because I believe effective leadership is a complex interaction of competence, creativity, character, and compassion.  This piece is about leader with character, about holding the self to the highest possible standards.  This is indeed an important part of leadership.  But by doing so, I hope that also gives us the strength to treat others with compassion.  What worries me is that because a leader is strong, everyone is also expected to live to those exacting standards, regardless of the situation.  Perhaps this is the means to achieve the highest financial profit, but I also hope that same strength of character empowers the leader to act with compassion and humanity.

I know your post is designed to help people take action, to empower them to make different choices, but implicit in it is judgement and blame, I would suggest, as you do, that we've already spent way too much time on judgement.  Our leaders can make a difference not only by living their own lives well, but also by having compassion and patience for those who not quite as strong, not quite as blessed, not quite as able, not quite ready.