Power in the workplace exists in many forms and can be used in all kinds of ways. That’s why the question of the correct use of power is at the heart of leadership. Can ‘might’ also be made ‘right’? Do we use whatever power we have ethically? Since ethics come from what is within us, not from externals, exploring how power is being used or abused is a facet of all civilized approaches to leadership.

Leadership isn’t even close to being a science, although it draws heavily on ideas from the social sciences. Today, there are continual attempts to derive ‘laws’ for leaders to follow, whether these come from statistical analysis, anecdotal evidence, or the erroneous belief that following what the ‘great men’ of the past did can produce success today. This is nonsense. Leadership is an art and depends mostly on sensitivity to circumstances, courage to face reality and a continual willingness to do whatever it takes to bring others along.

Many people with good ideas fail to get their boss to listen to them because they don’t listen themselves. They jump in with the details of what they want to say, only it’s the wrong time, the wrong context, the wrong approach and they use the wrong words. You need to listen to the boss, so you can adjust your approach to make it register as important and useful. Here are some principles that can make a big difference to getting all the elements of communication with your boss right more often than not.

The conventional wisdom is that we all need clear goals for our lives. I wonder if this is correct? After all, many people give up on the goals they have set themselves, and goal setting seems to lead to failure more often than to success. Here are some thoughts about potential pitfalls in establishing life and career objectives. They don’t happen to everyone, but they are definitely common enough to be worth avoiding.

In the second part of this series, read why the boss needs your help and you need help in return if you are both to make successful careers. Why you’re a team, like it or not, because you know things the boss doesn’t and vice versa. Only by pooling that knowledge can you find the right way forward. To be a successful ‘boss-whisperer’, you need to know how to share your knowledge, how to nudge the boss in the direction you want, and how to build trust and credibility to see you through bad times. The principles of each of these essential skills are set out for you here.

Doing too many things at once doesn’t save any time, and could be harming your health and career success. “Hurry, bustle, and agitation are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind,” Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son in the 1740s. It’s still true today. Multitasking isn’t a substitute for setting sensible priorities; nor will it allow you to produce the results you are capable of giving — if only you give yourself the time needed. One of the best routes to success, in almost any endeavor, is to learn the skill of paying close attention only to what matters. The fashion for multitasking needs to go the way of crinolines and powdered wigs.

What destroys a business is able people making enough unforced errors to give the competition a free run. Unforced errors are the ones you make regardless of the actions or skill of your competition. They’re the ones that result from taking too many risks, trying to do things too quickly, cutting costs to the point where you harm your own prospects, focusing on short-term wins and ignoring the consequences, and sticking to old habits when external circumstances have already changed enough to make them useless. Only by slowing down, paying better attention and investigating the alignment between what you say you want and what you do to get it can you find the answers.