The dichotomy of being a Leader

It has always perplexed me about what is THE X factor that makes one a good leader. Is it about the charisma of the person itself...is it about his or her ability to lead and provide that leadership towards a better eventuality, or perhaps is it about being able to have the vision and necessary wherewithal to push ahead with decisions, whatever or however hard a bitter pill it might take to swallow, and living and breathing later on to tell its tale? Well, seriously I don't really know, because I don't think I have an answer. But what I do know about myself, and my role as a leader is to be able to at least have the ability to envision what I want the organisation that I am leading to be heading towards, and to provide that support, and perhaps even be the first one to roll-up my sleeves and 'dirty' my hands to ensure that the ship will stay its course, and be able to reach its destination. And I do think that I am one of the most objective person around, or at least I think I am one of the most objective people that I know. And I am glad to be able to objectively state that my style of leadership has never been about being the most popular guy around, because that is not part of my agenda! And in fact I don't think my conscience will be clear if I adopted that approach, because it is simply not in my mental or metaphysical nature, to be wanting to take the lead in any leadership popularity poll of sorts. But it does saddens me that claims and counterclaims that have no basis seems to be the order of the day at times, but then again, do I give a hoot to them? Seriously I don't, but I guess this is just part and parcel of being a leader, and hopefully I can be a good one, and NOT a popular one!