Adam Bryant - The Corner Office

Daniel P. Amos, CEO, Aflac

Richard Anderson, CEO, Delta Air Lines

Steven A. Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft

George S. Barrett, CEO, Cardinal Health

Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo

Gordon M. Bethune, former CEO, Continental Airlines

Greg Brenneman, chairman, CCMP Capital

Bobbi Brown, founder, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics

Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO

Ursula M. Burns, CEO, Xerox

Bill Carter, partner and co-founder, Fuse

Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman, Wal-Mart Stores

John T. Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems

Cristóbal Conde, CEO, SunGard

Andrew Cosslett, CEO, InterContinental Hotels Group

Susan Docherty, vice president, General Motors

John Donahoe, CEO, eBay

Brian Dunn, CEO, Best Buy

Deborah Dunsire, CEO, Millennium

Jana Eggers, CEO, Spreadshirt

Drew Gilpin Faust, president, Harvard University

William D. Green, CEO, Accenture

Mindy Grossman, CEO, HSN

Omar Hamoui, founder and CEO, AdMob

Steve Hannah, CEO, The Onion

Linda Heasley, CEO, The Limited

Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos

Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO, Nvidia

Linda Hudson, CEO, BAE Systems

Robert Iger, CEO, Disney

Judith Jamison, artistic director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO, DreamWorks Animation

Guy Kawasaki, co-founder, Alltop, and managing director, Garage Technology Ventures

Lawrence W. Kellner, CEO, Continental Airlines

Wendy Kopp, founder and CEO, Teach for America

Jacqueline Kosecoff, CEO, Prescription Solutions

Barbara J. Krumsiek, CEO, Calvert Group

Debra L. Lee, CEO, BET Networks

Niki Leondakis, chief operating officer, Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants

Dawn Lepore, CEO, Drugstore.com

Dany Levy, founder, DailyCandy.com

Terry J. Lundgren, CEO, Macy’s

Susan Lyne, CEO, Gilt Groupe

Sheila Lirio Marcelo, CEO, Care.com

Michael Mathieu, CEO, YuMe

Gary E. McCullough, CEO, Career Education Corporation

Nancy McKinstry, CEO, Walters Kluwer

Nell Minow, co-founder, The Corporate Library

Meridee A. Moore, founder, Watershed Asset Management

Alan R. Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor Company

Anne Mulcahy, former CEO, Xerox

Sharon Napier, CEO, Partners + Napier

Shantanu Narayen, CEO, Adobe Systems

Vineet Nayar, CEO, HCL Technologies

David C. Novak, CEO, Yum Brands

Clarence Otis Jr., CEO, Darden Restaurants

Mark Pincus, CEO, Zynga

Joseph J. Plumeri, CEO, Willis Group Holdings

Lisa Price, founder, Carol’s Daughter

Quintin E. Primo III, co-founder and CEO, Capri Capital Partners

James E. Rogers, CEO, Duke Energy

Kasper Rorsted, CEO, Henkel

Dan Rosensweig, CEO, Chegg

Stephen I. Sadove, CEO, Saks

James J. Schiro, CEO, Zurich Financial Services

Robert W. Selander, CEO, MasterCard

Kevin Sharer, CEO, Amgen

Carol Smith, senior vice president and chief brand officer, Elle Group

Jilly Stephens, executive director, City Harvest

Jeffrey Swartz, CEO, Timberland

Teresa A. Taylor, chief operating officer, Qwest Communications

Kip Tindell, CEO, The Container Store

Will Wright, videogame developer

Tachi Yamada, president, Global Health Program, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

For investorsand business journalists, stock-price fluctuations and quarterly results offer a steady stream of report cards for evaluating a CEO’s work. And then, every spring, when proxy season rolls around and companies disclose the compensation packages for top executives, another round of report cards begins. This transparency keeps people honest and creates a relatively level playing field (except, of course, when the numbers lie). From these data, a story line emerges around the CEOs as strategists, and we focus on their successes, their failures, their challenges. Have they sized up the industry landscape correctly and developed a plan to beat their competitors? Are they executing this plan in a disciplined fashion?

For this book, I was interested in pursuing a different story line about CEOs – their own personal stories, free of numbers, theories, jargon, charts, and with minimal discussions of their companies or industries. I wanted to hear what they had learned from their ups and downs, their stories about how they learned to lead, the mistakes they made along the way, how they fostered supportive corporate cultures, and how they do the same things that every other manager does – interview job candidates, run meetings, promote teamwork, manage their time, and give and get feedback.

While setting overall business strategy is certainly an important part of a CEO’s job, leadership shapes every part of their day. Once they have a plan, the challenge becomes making sure they have the right people on the team, and getting the most out of them and the broader organization. CEOs may not study leadership in books or develop new silver-bullet theories, but they are experts in leadership because they practice it daily. And many of them have spent the better part of a decade or more honing their leadership styles, through trial and error, studying what works and what doesn’t, and then mentoring others.

CEOs have learned firsthand what it takes to succeed and rise to the top of an organization. From the corner office, they can watch others attempt a similar climb, and notice the qualities that set people apart. As they evaluate talent, they learn to divine why one person is more likely to succeed than another. When they bring in talent from the outside, they watch as some new hires blend in better than others. Who succeeds? Who fails? Why? It’s a feedback loop that expands with every additional person they manage, creating a kind of laboratory for studying the qualities that enable people to succeed. CEOs study team dynamics, too. If one division or group consistently outperforms another, why is that? What leadership skills does that division or group leader possess? Finally, there is feedback from the marketplace. In business, there are constant judgments and scores. From quarter to quarter, CEOs can determine whether their strategies and leadership styles are working, and whether they need to be adjusted.

CEOs face criticism from many corners, and it is often deserved. But there is no arguing that they have achieved a great deal, through a combination of smarts, hard work, attitude, and commitment. They have much to offer beyond a return on a shareholder’s investment.

I have spent much of my two decades in business journalism interviewing CEOs and asking variations of the question “What’s the strategy for your company?” But I found myself growing more interested in asking them questions like “How do you do what you do?” “How did you learn to do what you do?” and “What lessons have you learned that you can share with others?”

I developed an appreciation for what effective leadership can mean for a company – and the skills a CEO brings to the table – when I covered the airline industry in the mid-1990s as a reporter for the New York Times . It was a particularly turbulent time in the business, and some of the executives running the carriers were larger-than-life characters. The airline industry, I realized, was like the National Football League. There are team colors and logos – and people have strong passions about which teams they love and hate. Each team has roughly the same equipment, and, as in football, the playing field is reasonably level. One airline can instantly copy an effective strategy from a competitor, whether it’s a fare sale or a new twist to the frequent-flyer program. Like defensive and offensive players in football, the employees of each airline are organized into their own specialized units – pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, baggage handlers, gate agents, white-collar workers. I found that what really made the difference from one airline to another was leadership. The culture and tone started at the top, and each company reflected the personalities of its CEO, whether it was Robert L. Crandall at American, Herb Kelleher at Southwest, Stephen M. Wolf at United, or Gordon M. Bethune at Continental. The leader who understood how to get his employees to work together as a team had an advantage.