View From the Top: An Inside Look at How People in Power See and Shape the World

BASED ON THE LARGEST LEADERSHIP STUDY OF ITS KIND, INCLUDING CANDID INTERVIEWS WITH PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE HEADS OF HARVARD, GE, JP MORGAN CHASE, AT&T, AND HUNDREDS OF POWERFUL INSTITUTIONS

PRAISE FOR VIEW FROM THE TOP

Michael Lindsay continues to impress as one of the foremost thinkers on the topic of leadership. Drawing on a massive wealth of firsthand data, he clearly presents insights into what creates great leaders and more importantly, the attributes, skills and techniques each of us should add to our leadership arsenal.
—PAT GELSINGER CEO, VMware

If you ever wanted to know what the lives of top CEOs and national leaders are really like, read View From the Top. With a decade of in–depth interviews with Fortune 100 CEOs, U.S. Presidents, and leaders in religion, academia and philanthropy, Michael Lindsay reveals how they got there, why they do it, and the price they pay for power.
—KERRY HEALEY President, Babson College

View From the Top is one of those rare books in leadership research that deftly connects biography to the larger social structure and society. Interweaving the individual within the larger social context, Lindsay has written an important book for anyone who seriously thinks about how to create the conditions for inspiring future generations to seek passion and purpose, so that they can bring the moral and practical energies necessary to renew our political, social, and economic institutions.
—RAKESH KHURANA Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development, Harvard Business School

Michael Lindsay has personally interviewed more than 500 of America s premier business, political, and non–profit leaders a research tour de force. What strikingly emerges from his inside portrait of the careers and views of those at the top is the value of seizing opportunity, navigating networks, and garnering trust. For an outside observer or future denizen of this national elite, View From the Top offers an invaluable and authoritative account.
—MICHAEL USEEM Professor and Director of the Leadership Center, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and co–author of Boards That Lead

1 Act Personally, But Think Institutionally: Develop Your Network Beyond Your Organization 1

2 Leadership Begins at 20: Beyond Bootstraps and Boarding School 19

3 More Breadth, Less Depth: Catalyzing Your Leadership 35

4 The Essence of Leadership: Driving Productivity, People, and Culture 55

5 Strength in the Crucible of Crisis 77

6 Lead with Your Life: Because It s Much More than a Job 97

7 Lead for Good: Motivations and Outcomes 117

Conclusion 137

Notes 145

Appendix 163

Acknowledgments 205

Index 209

D. MICHAEL LINDSAY is the president of Gordon College and one of the youngest college presidents in the country. An award–winning sociologist and educator, Dr. Lindsay has lectured on five continents and worked with dozens of organizations to increase their leadership capacities. His Pulitzer–nominated book, Faith in the Halls of Power, was listed in Publisher s Weekly Best Books of 2007, and his work has been profiled in hundreds of media outlets worldwide. He and his wife, Rebecca, live with their three daughters on the campus of Gordon College just north of Boston.