Wal-Mart, with its legendary focus on customer value in terms of price, is innovating in sustainability. Now, we're beginning to see the mirror image, a convergence, as the not-for-profit sector is beginning to serve more effectively by applying private sector accountability and efficiencies to social needs. This reflects a rising recognition that to serve others best requires more than good intentions; it mandates a focus on real-world results. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are among the most conspicuous advocates and representatives of this transformation.

Ronald Reagan was unusual in being an authentic personality. Unlike many professional actors - and politicians - he was much the same behind the curtain as in front.

Curiously, for all the outpourings of scholarship on Theodore Roosevelt, no one had written a book focused directly on his leadership approach, working in large part from his own letters and other writings. That opportunity was open, and I was privileged to step in.

If leadership is, fundamentally, about serving others, then any one person should be able to move between being a "leader" and a "follower."

In a time when our nation is engaged in multiple, long-term wars, it's critical that "the military" not become an abstraction to the vast majority of Americans who are not participants.

William McKinley has surely been underrated - in no small part because he was succeeded by a memorable leader, Theodore Roosevelt.

Effective leadership relationships at a high level include the insertion of a degree of distance from those being served. That may be part of what President Ronald Reagan referred to when he mused that he didn't see how anyone could be president who wasn't an actor.