one leader has all the answers," admits Yaverbaum, public relations expert and author of I'll Get Back to You and Public Relations for Dummies , but he bets that "if you combine the most brilliant ones, you'd have everything you need to lead your organization to success." Based on the now widely accepted theory that good leaders are not born but forged through experience, his latest book collects the leadership secrets of America's top executives through first-person interviews. Each edited interview is straightforward and brief, yet dives to the heart of what business strategies, philosophies and attitudes have worked best for these chiefs. Anecdotes and advice support such sage sound bites as "If you treat your employees well, they will take care of your customers and your business," by AFLAC CEO Daniel P. Amos. For example, by valuing employees' ideas, providing day-care facilities for working parents and financial incentives like profit sharing, Amos says, AFLAC has improved productivity and customer care. Meanwhile, Sy Sternberg, chairman and CEO of New York Life, warns to keep strategic thinking "in house": consultants may help test and focus innovative ideas, "but you can't let those tools serve as a proxy for leadership." The book does not attempt to hold readers' hands in a step-by-step guide to implementing this advice. However, with a potential leadership crisis at hand, brought home by the scourge of recent corporate scandals, these vignettes will offer valuable wisdom for all business managers.
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