leaders around, what would they look like? Here are a few principles of good leadership. Know when to hold them, know when to fold them In leadership as in life, the right amount of perseverance is key. You need to be able to stick with a policy until it's proven itself as either a good idea or a bad idea. You need to be able to spot that moment, and you need to be able to take action accordingly. You're always open to the accusation, when you do, of having taken a "policy U-turn" or being a "flip-flopper". But it's not weakness to admit you were wrong. It's intelligence. Be able to admit you were wrong A good leader is more invested in getting the answer right now than in claiming to have been right all along. Correctly handled, "I was wrong, I'm sorry" is going to play a lot better than increasingly desperate attempts to claim that everyone else is wrong apart from you. Smart businesses know this, apologise to their customers and make it right, rather than being defensive. At the moment in New Zealand there's a controversy over the high pricing of Adidas rugby jerseys here versus overseas in the lead-up to the world cup. Adidas is sticking to its position that the local pricing is fair, despite the fact that their customers overwhelmingly don't agree. It's doing the brand immense damage. I had a personal experience of the opposite approach from a local cereal company. I'd