Over the years, I’ve written CatchUp articles with leadership lessons from Shakespeare plays (King Lear, Comedy of Errors), Winnie the Pooh, Walking in Memphis (the song) and Harry Potter.

I recently reread the articles and discovered a few things. First, the articles aren’t as good as I remembered but are probably better than what I’m writing now. Second, you can learn about leadership from multiple sources and in about every situation. Third, leadership has consequences, just not always as planned. The consequences may be short-term and long-term, good and bad, catastrophic and limited, public and private, and so on.

In short, good leadership doesn’t always produce positive results and poor leadership doesn’t always produce negative results. So, with all these variables, why do we read, study and talk about good leadership? Why do we want to practice good leadership? Why don’t we just do whatever and hope for the best? Why do we keep trying? Of course, the definition of good leadership can be subjective, but we won’t get into that today.

Here's why I keep trying. I’m hopeful that there’s a correlation, maybe even causation, between practicing good leadership and experiencing positive results. Even if you don’t get the results you want, maybe you get closer to a successful outcome than you would otherwise. And even if you don’t get the outcome you want, maybe your efforts will make at least one person’s life a little better. That’s one reason to keep learning and working toward better leadership.

Of course, I don’t always live up to my standards of good leadership, much less the standards exemplified by great leaders I’ve known or read about. For me, the main thing, above and beyond results, is to keep trying day in and day out, on the good days and not so good days, through success and failure. It’s about putting in the work, doing difficult things with grace, knowing your purpose and yourself, holding steady during turbulent times, seeking the greater good, helping others achieve their goals and more. That’s what makes leadership worthwhile. That’s what makes living worthwhile. That’s why we keep trying.