WHAT are the keys to insuring a strong start in a leadership position?

Christopher Finlay, Chicago

A

YOU could fill a book . . . in fact, you could probably fill dozens . . . with all the ways to get off to a good start as a leader.

Get to know your people and learn what makes each one tick. Don't pretend you know everything about the job; ask a lot of questions and really listen to the answers. Figure out what it takes to win. Familiarse yourself with the competition. Worry about what market changes could kill you, if not next year, the year after. Pay visits to the customers who keep you alive. Pay longer visits to the customers who have recently kissed you goodbye.

The list goes on and on.

But one thing you have to do as a new leader . . . and from then on out . . . is define yourself. Make sure your people know what you stand for. Under no circumstances, no matter what the size of your company or the business you're in, should you ever let your team guess about your principles or why you make tough calls the way you do. Tell them yourself, and tell them again and again.

Now, we're not saying you need to spend every minute of your day making a stump speech about your platform. Communication at its best is two-way, and leaders should always be engaged in dialogue with people throughout the organisation.

But in times of change or crisis, if you don't talk openly about your reasoning, you're in trouble.

Take, for painful example, the mess earlier this month involving President George W Bush and his veto of a budget increase proposal for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

This column is not about the merit (or not) of SCHIP, a state-federal health insurance subsidy program that Democrats and some Republicans were pushing to increase by $35bn over five years, adding four million people to the 6.6 million already participating.

It is about how the president blew a massive leadership opportunity by staying quiet about his reasons for opposing the program's expansion.

No, no, no!

Especially when it comes to controversial decisions, leaders must communicate more, not less. Sure, President Bush explained his veto in his weekly radio address. That's when he said he blocked the expansion of SCHIP because it was too costly, and, in replacing private coverage with government payouts, represented a dangerous move toward socialised medicine.

But the SCHIP veto was a huge principle vote, not only for the Bush presidency, but for his party going into the 2008 elections. For those reasons, President Bush had to get out there. He could have, for instance, appeared on national TV and explained, in the simplest possible language, what principles motivated his decision. In any medium, he should have communicated beyond a doubt that his veto was about deeply held values.

Instead, President Bush created a leadership vacuum. Worse, he gave his opponents a lay-up, and they easily scored, depicting him as heartless toward children. You won't likely face such hardball in your new leadership role, but somewhere along the way, you're sure to discover what's true in politics is true in business. If you don't define yourself, especially in tough times, you can be sure someone else will do it for you.

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Jack and Suzy Welch are the authors of the international best-seller Winning. You can email them questions at Winning@nytimes. com.