Mediocrity does not befit your true magnitude.

-- Alan Cohen

Which are, according to you, the new important criteria for a Leader?

1. Leave our egos at the front door and do brilliant work - that adds remarkable value for your customers.
2. Build a phenomenally great team. A mediocre team results in a mediocre company.
3. Innovate and disrupt the way you think and perform daily in hot pursuit of something even better.
4. Build deep relationships.
5. Be authentic and transparent. Winning companies show they are the real deal and live their brand.

Did the economic crisis change the expectations of companies towards leaders?

Of course. Given the behaviors of so many once-respected leaders, stakeholders are now demanding only the highest standards of performance, transparency and ethics of their leaders. In The Leader Who Had No Title, I write: "it could take you 20 years to build a great reputation and 20 seconds to lose it - in one act of bad judgment."

What characterizes a leader?

There isn't just one thing that makes an exceptional leader - just like there isn't just one thing that made Mozart exceptional or Picasso great. The best leaders have a bias towards innovation, are ruthlessly focused on just a few things, have remarkable capacity to attract superb talent, have strong resilience in the face of turbulence and are often radically optimistic (while being wildly practical).