Allegedly, when John Adams met George Washington for the first time just prior to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, he turned to a colleague and told him that Washington “would be leading something someday.” We all know how that went.

Some people are natural born leaders. I truly believe this. Of course, there is another viewpoint that leadership has to be learned. I agree with that too. The difference between successful leaders and terrible ones can be drilled down to the specific choices they make.

Leaders make all kinds of choices. They make decisions every day, some more critical than others. The best leaders don’t spend much time making decisions about nonsense. They make choices related to strategy, direction, and focus. Do you really think that General Washington made choices about how to handle a disruptive soldier? Of course he didn’t. He had lower-ranking Officers to deal with that stuff. Washington’s job was to focus on creating strategies that would lead to the defeat of the British Army. He simply didn’t have time and could not spend any of his energy on things that didn’t relate to winning the war.

Here are 3 choices that successful leaders make:

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