That being said, the book has a number of problems: First, a very significant amount of the book is devoted to explaining how the authors chose the people that they chose, and explaining why they were the right people to be writing this book. What should have been a brief introduction and perhaps an appendix, became the first and last sections of the book and unfortunately, unless you are a statistician, these areas are quite boring. Second, the authors lost the individual voices of the people that they interviewed. Perhaps for consistency or brevity, they paraphrased so much and only introduced quotations as small parts of larger paragraphs that you really aren't able to tell the voice of the various people apart.
Also of note is that this book includes sections on Enron's Ken Lay and WorldCom's Bernie Ebbers -- perhaps not exactly the model to emulate -- but hindsight is 20/20 ...
All in all, Lessons From the Top is an well written book, rewarding for those just starting in business or those simply looking for a new opinion. Also, the authors have included (within the sections about the executive) names of various people (and the books that they wrote) who influenced the executive, so you may find other books to explore when you are done.
It is in failing to use the resources at their disposal and access to some remarkable people to draw significant insights, that makes for the biggest shortfall of the book. One may just as well read a description of the CEOs or the companies in a business magazine or the Wall Street Journal.
There are no unique insights to be gained from this book. Yes, some of the CEOs provide some discussion points based on their experience, but much of the space is devoted to their company's specific problems at a particular time (thus leaders of questionable integrity, such as Ebbers and Lay were included).
What in my opinion the authors should have done is go above the specific company experience and focus on the qualities of these interesting individuals and show what has allowed them to have such significant impact on the business world and out society.
Unfortunately such insights are absent from the book. What a pity!
What's particularly telling is that all the Leaders are chosen based upon the authors model of what a good business leader is -- that is, they "load" the deck by having asked who is first to come to mind when specific categorical questions are asked, such as "commitment to diversity". (They included the questions used in the initial survey, which was used to narrow the field to 50 Leaders.) Note, however, that leadership in management has been defined as how well they are able to get people to willingly adopt, follow and achieve their vision, and these questions ask nothing of that.
Also, it's weighed by company financial statements and "fame" of Leaders. Smaller companies with great Leaders will not get mentioned. For example, there is a small company in Los Angeles, that, in 2000, earned $500,000.00 per employee, by putting customers first, employees second and ownership last. Insisting that continued education was paramount to the success of the company, he sent a young manager to his alma mater, CalTech, for post-graduate work. He was always heard saying: "Customers first! Change is good! Have fun!" and his employees followed suite and found ingenious ways to improve quality, save money and enjoy work -- and they did it because they loved the president. That's LEADERSHIP.
The real surprise among smaller surprises is that an astonishing number of Leaders did not stay at their jobs for long (although, an equally astonishing number have been at the same company virtually all of their career). This suggests that loyalty is not a Leadership trait. (Note also that most of the companies had been wildly successful, long before the Leader arrived.) Another surprise is that very few of the Leaders earned advanced degrees, some earning honorary degrees (perhaps for charitable contributions to the school?). The richest man in the world, Bill Gates, didn't graduate from college??? Just shows how having a spectacular product will make you look like a great leader (Disney! Mobil! Campbell's Soup!) Why, even disgraced Enron CEO Ken Ley is among the Great.
What wasn't a surprise is that most Leaders attributed their success to a customer-based, quality-driven philosophy. That is, what quality professionals have known all along (and said much more succinctly by Eli Goldratt): the key to making money now and in the future is to make customers happy now and in the future (and making employees and suppliers happy now and in the future). Read Dr. Deming's 14 Points, and you'll see that every Leadership trait described in this book is accounted for in Deming's quality philosophies.
"Write what you want to read" was advice given to the authors, but was it sage advice? The book, 430 pages long, reads like a 50 section fluff piece on people that may not have given them the time of day, but not for being raised to the stature of 50 Best. The first three chapters, which outline the surveying and the structure of the book only show how eager the authors are to make nice with the big boys. They should've discarded the advice, and taken some from the Leaders: "write what your CUSTOMERS want to read".
Last comment: the Lesson Learned, supposedly a synopsis of what can be gleaned from the Leaders profiles, sums it up with Six Core Principles, strangely without mentioning the most frequently mentioned Leadership mantra "Please your customer". With that glaring omission, I can't see how the authors learned any Lessons from the Top.