Chapter 6Leadership Is an Obligation—Step Up
For the past few years, Fortune magazine has published an annual list of “The World's 50 Greatest Leaders.” It recognizes individuals from a cross-section of business, government, philanthropy, sports, and the arts—leaders Fortune believes are transforming the world and inspiring others to do the same. It's quite the list of truly accomplished individuals. Here's a sample:
- Businesspeople such as Jeff Bezos from Amazon, Elon Musk from Tesla and SpaceX, and Lisa Su from AMD
- Pope Francis
- Athletes such as LeBron James
- Artists such as Shakira and John Legend
- Political leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-Wen, and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
These and the many others on the list are extraordinary individuals. It is interesting that they make the list not simply because they excel at what they do, but also because they have gone above and beyond in their own leadership roles and have had a significant impact on the world.
Part of the magazine's motivation to create this list is to focus the attention on great leaders because the stories in the media tend to overemphasize the tarnished ones—those leaders embroiled in scandal, corruption, or quite simply ineffective in their roles. Fortune also postulates that—in our world of radical transparency and change—truly exceptional, “knockout leadership” is harder to maintain.
Leaders on the list are featured in a brief article that describes who ...
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