Just as a leader needs constantly to learn, to upgrade skills, and to add to his or her knowledge base, a leader also has to be a constant teacher. Too many leaders make the assumption that there is an unbridgeable gulf between themselves and their followers, so they fail to impart what they've learned, allowing their followers to remain in the dark.

In a democratic society served by a competitive press, it's getting ever more difficult for political leaders to keep their followers in the dark. Outside the political realm, however, leaders all too often leave their followers in the lurch until trouble rears its head. The best course of action for a leader is to make every effort to keep followers informed and then to teach them new skills whenever possible so that the group can benefit as a whole. A good leader should also make it his or her business to have every member of the group be a teacher so that skills do not flow in one direction only. "Each one teach one" should be your guiding motto on the subject of learning. Your obligation is to teach someone, who can teach someone else, and so on.

Groups succeed because their knowledge and skill bases rise faster than those of competing groups, so it seems obvious that learning and teaching are integral to the success of leaders. Leaders who think that teaching is beneath them are leaders destined to fail.