How to be a leader in your field?  Dragos shared a link to How to Be a Leader, which I found interesting.  In the article,  Philip E. Agre presents a six step recipe for becoming a leader in your field:

1. Pick an issue.
2. Having chosen your issue, start a project to study it.
3. Find relevant people and talk to them.
4. Pull together what you've heard.
5. Circulate the result.
6. Build on your work.

I think the takeaway was that to be a leader in the field, you help move the ball forward.  In step 1, Philip gives an A-Z list of how to pick which ball to move forward. 

Another part of the article caught my attention.  Philip writes:

"To succeed in your career, you need more than the skills that you got in school -- you need to be the world expert in something. Knowledge is global, it's growing exponentially, and nobody can pack all of the necessary knowledge into their head. So everyone's going to specialize."

I think there's a lot to be said for focus and specialization.  The trick is picking what to specialize in.  Personally, I like to specialize in skills that compound over time versus flavor of the day.