Bennis and Thomas in their new book, Geeks and Geezers, have identified certain qualities that “make” leaders and help them remain good leaders. Regardless of the era in which a leader is “born” the essentials at the core of good leadership remain the same. The authors have discovered, through their research, that all significant leaders had experienced at least one defining moment, or transformational experience, in their lives. That the experience, labeled a “crucible” by the authors, was of the type that could either make or break them. In the case of effective leaders, the crucible resulted in making them—the experiences were of a nature that they provided them with “opportunities for learning and growth” which they seized upon, learned and grew.

The definition of the Totally Responsible Person™ states: “Everything that happens to us is an opportunity for learning and growth.” The leaders studied demonstrated a capacity for using such experiences as learning opportunities.

The authors identified four essential qualities that allow one to remain a leader. Two of them can be learned from TRP^® training: an “adaptive capacity” that arms people with the ability to not only experience difficulties, challenges, and upsets, but to also learn from them; and the ability to determine between good and evil, i.e. a sense of integrity.

Another common TRP^® quality of effective leaders identified by the authors is the ability to remain open and embrace with courage whatever “the new day brings” including substantial risks.