Rating: 
Summary: Great lessons. Easy to find relevant advice.
Review: (context: I'm a 34 yr old CEO of a 14 person Internet firm)There are terrific, concise lessons in this book, from some highly proven leaders. Also useful is that many lessons emerge consistently across multiple leader profiles, further driving them home. Be aware that the book mostly is anecdotal, rather than a how-to, though the authors do a useful wrap-up of "lessons learned." The authors do spend a lot of time describing their methodology, which is a bit cumbersome. But with a book like this you can easily skip the non-relevant parts and get straight to the parts about the leaders you're interested in. I highlighted throughout and distributed among our team.
Rating: 
Summary: For the Eager Student
Review: Among the many books which examine "America's best business leaders", this is one of the best-written and most informative. Part I consists of three chapters: What Makes Business Leaders Great, Evaluating Today's Business Leaders, and Methodology: A Closer Look at the Numbers. The authors then proceed to 50 "Profiles" in Part II, beginning (in alphabetical order) with Mike Armstrong (AT&T) and concluding with Jack Welch (GE). Part III consists of three chapters: The 51st Business Leader: Peter Drucker, Doing the Right Things Right: A New Definition of Business Success, and Common Traits: A Prescription for Success in Business. The reader is then provided with three Appendices to supplement and enrich the material which precedes them. So much for the book's organization. There are several reasons why I rate this book so highly. First, as previously indicated, it is exceptionally well-written. Also, each of the 50 "Profiles" probes deeply into the specific talents and skills of its subject. Biographical information and quotations supplement the authors' own analyses. Moreover, each "Profile" illustrates a key point. For example, the discussion of Bill Steere (Pfizer) illuminates the implications of his assertion that "Fads come. Fads go. We concentrate on what we do best." In the "Profile" of him, Jack Welch observes "I don't think anyone appreciates the value of informal." Obviously, Welch does. I also was very impressed by the quality of the content of Part III. The discussion of Peter Drucker is among the most insightful I have ever read. The authors redefine "business success in the next chapter and then review the "common traits" of the 50 great business leaders they have analyzed. For those who are eager to learn, the "lessons" identified and then discussed by Neff and Citrin are invaluable.
Rating:
Summary: A great window into leadership of Americas Industry Titans.
Review: I have seen an early edition of "Lessons From the Top". Remarkably, "Lessons From the Top" brings America's Corporate Board Room to the rest of America. As a former Assistant Corporate Secretary for what was at the time, America's largest outside Board of Directors, I had the unique opportunity to participate in strategy sessions and become acquanted with captains of US business. Now, I am happy to say, the rest of America is provided this special opportunity with a glimpse into some of the country's finest corporate leaders. "Lessons from the Top" takes a look at what makes these 50 industry leaders tick and how their actions and skills have contributed to their leadership success. The access afforded these authors is impressive, as is the statistical selection process utilized to select the participants. The book is clearly organized and valuable lessons may be learned as we take this book with us on our business travels. I recommend it for everyone who is interested further insights into leadership skills for work and extra-curricular activities.
Rating: 
Summary: Dissapointing -- Major resources; poor result
Review: In skimming through this at the bookstore I thought it was a "can't miss." Turns out it could miss. I praise the author's strategy in that they assemble a wonderful group of leaders and pick their brain on a variety of issues - great for the average reader. The problem is that the data they gathered is pretty much raw data and needs some analysis to translate it into actionable findings. This isn't done until the end, and in my opinion, should have been 50% of the book, not 5%. With everyone crunched for time, there are other business books that will provide better, more concise information. Save your time unless you have too much of it :)
Rating: 
Summary: Lessons From the Top
Review: James Citrin and Thomas Neff compile a set of business anecdotes from the results of their exhaustive surveying, hoping to convey the important lessons of 50 of America's top business leaders. Each leader profile has interesting personal details, a leadership "philosophy" to lead off the profile, and examples to help detail how the profile has made them successful. 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.
Rating:
Summary: Dissapointing -- Major resources; poor result
Review: The authors -- with Spencer Stuart (www.spencerstuart.com) -- had access to some distinguished (Lou Gerstner; Andy Grove, Bill Gates) and some not so distinguished (Bernie Ebbers, Ken Lay) CEOs, and they used Gallup to conduct series of interviews and polls trying to get some insights as to what makes some CEOs successful. What the authors produce are a series of capsules (2-4 pages for each CEO) which are descriptive of the CEOs and companies but have very little analysis. 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!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Consolidation of Perspectives
Review: There are many good books on business out there, but few combine the experiences of so many leading executives on the subject. Lessons From the Top includes interviews with 50 of the most respected leaders from America's top businesses. Especially attractive are the interviews with the execs that didn't author a book themselves. 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Unintentionally hilarious
Review: This book is interesting to read! It contains many insightful tips that can be useful not only to other managers. I would say that most of the contributing managers are well worth reading, but in a collection like this one some are of course better than others. All the business leaders have been choosen in a careful evaluation-process to find the best of the best. This process is also described in the book. After the recent developments in the US Economy, it can also be interesting to get the book from the bookshelf, like I did, and read what managers like Ken Lay (Enron), Bernie Ebbers (Worldcom) and Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco) have got to say. Each chapter, somewhere between 10 and 20 pages, includes the managers career in short along with the key facts about the company they lead. I found it interesting to read about people who have made to the top, and these kind of publications normally includes information you won't find elsewhere. This book is no exception. It is also a book that you can read when you have a few minutes over since the chapters are so short, it is also easy to pick out the managers that find most interesting an concentrate on them.
Rating:
Summary: corporate dribble
Review: This is an ideal book with short 5 pages or so interviews with 50 of Americas highly successful business leaders. One thread that 'flows' through is they are caring people adept at managing relationships and possess excellent people skills. Useful reading for any human resources or strategic planning programme. Trainers and facilitators may want to share quotes, anecdotes and descriptions from the book when facilitating workshops in leadership, motivation and relationship building. A good book also for background reading for Management Seminars for very senior executives.
Rating:
Summary: Lonely at the top
Review: This isn't a how-to-be-a-CEO book. It is a collection of interviews with top CEOs and their answers to questions about success, leadership and personal values. I enjoyed keeping this book nearby and reading one or two CEO profiles a day. In the last chapter or two, the authors summarize the common themes they found in the interviews. It could be used as a checklist of what should be important to you as a CEO.
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