Stephen H Baum Leadership

Adam Bryant article “Distilling the Wisdom of CEOs” extols the virtues of the book, The Corner Office. Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons From CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed.” It is clearly worth a read.

Distilling the Wisdom of CEOs

In my view, as differentiators of who gets to lead and who does not, the five qualities are a good start: passionate curiosity. Battle-hardened confidence. Team smarts. A simple mind-set. Fearlessness.

But in my book which Random House published in 2007, my biographies of CEOs indicated these traits are key: character (“good purpose toward the enterprise and the people it touches”), a problem-solving instinct and the capacity to act decisively, the ability to inspire and engage others, the ability to transcend self-doubt, the appetite to embrace calculated risk.

More important, most of the book is not so much about the qualities as the ten requisite experiences for acquiring those qualities (“shaping experiences”). By way of example: “swimming in water over your head”, “getting good on your feet,” ‘making the tough choice.”

These experiences may happen in childhood, school or college or early work career. They are listed in the introduction of the book (see book icon on this website’s home page).

And nobody does it entirely alone. Each has had a “personal board of directors” or an angel who opened a door, made them look in the mirror and change and more.

That’s my view. What’s yours?