1.4. How Leaders Succeed

What matters to leaders is success. They will pay attention to you if they think you have a good sense of what they need to achieve that success.

Every CEO and leader assembles her own set of ingredients—intellectual, financial, emotional, and behavioral—to drive her toward the success she seeks. In my observation of leaders and of the various behaviors that lead to success or to failure, I have concluded that there are five crucial ingredients, the absence of any one of which will severely impair a leader's success and perhaps even trigger additional negative behaviors by boards of directors and by constituents (employees, customers, or shareholders). Let's look at these five vital ingredients.

  1. Focus. Focus is at the ...

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