Here is an excerpt from a classic article by Richard S. Tedlow in which the Harvard business historian explains how Intel’s legendary chief , Andrew Grove, became the best model we have for leading a business in the 21st century. It was featured by FORTUNE magazine. To read the complete article, check out other resources, and obtain subscription information, please click here.

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In 1991, an instructor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business presented his class with a case study. It went like this: A CEO was scheduled to address a major industry gathering, and he could give one of three speeches. The first would publicly commit his company to incorporating a sexy, sophisticated new technology in its products. The second speech would reaffirm the company’s commitment to developing its existing technology. The third speech would do neither, leaving the decision to “the market.” The stakes were enormous: A wrong decision could well ruin the business. What should the CEO do? The question was more than academic, because the CEO described in the case was also the man at the front of the classroom. Dr. Andrew S. Grove, like professor Indiana Jones, was better known for his exploits as “Andy,” the famous leader of Intel Corp. But unlike Indy, Grove wasn’t simply biding time here between adventures. His question was meant not just to challenge students’ thinking but to advance his own. That big speech was three weeks away, and Grove had yet to make up his mind. He didn’t know the answer.

It’s not common for any CEO to stand before an audience and say, “I don’t know what to do. What do you think?” It’s even less common for that CEO to listen to the responses and take them seriously. But Grove, 69, has never lost track of the truth: that Intel has always been one wrong answer away from disaster–and that a closed mind is a trap door to the abyss.

Grove and Intel are now embedded so deeply Inside our minds, our computers, and our culture — the man has been on 77 magazine covers, by one count–that with hindsight, their success seems foreordained. But the opposite is the case: By all odds, Intel should have failed. It should have been destroyed by the same brutal international competition that has killed apparel companies, tire companies, and television companies, or fallen into obscurity like Zilog and other successful chipmakers. Intel, too, should have stumbled on the terrifying treadmill of Moore’s Law, which requires betting billions upon billions of dollars on ever more costly factories to make chips you’re still developing for customers who’ve yet to demand them. It should have been eclipsed by an upstart competitor with a better mousetrap. Intel’s success should never have happened — it was an anomaly, an outlier, a freak.

That’s why Grove had chosen himself as the day’s case study in the class he was teaching with professor Robert Burgelman, his longtime collaborator and the author of Strategy Is Destiny. In business you often don’t see the cliff until you’ve already walked over it. Visibility on the ground is bad, and the roadmap — well, that can’t be trusted either.

To spot the next cliff, Andy Grove was willing to let go of his instincts–since they could be wrong–and view himself as a student might: from outside, peering down with the wide-angle, disinterested perspective of the observer. Did the man below seem aware of his surroundings? Was he choosing the correct path? Was there a 1,000-foot drop ahead?

Normally, our society observes a division of labor. Musicians don’t critique, and critics don’t compose. Quarterbacks decide on Sunday, and fans deride on Monday. It is the singular ability to inhabit both roles at once–subject and object, actor and audience, master and student–that sets Grove apart. And it’s why, for everything that has been written by and about him, we have yet to appreciate his biggest legacy. Andy Grove is America’s greatest student and teacher of business.

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Here is a direct link to the complete article.

Richard Tedlow is the Class of 1949 Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, where he is a specialist in the history of business. He received his BA from Yale and his MA and PhD in history from Columbia. He came to the Harvard Business School on a fellowship in 1978 and joined the faculty in 1979. From 1979 through 1982, he taught First Year Marketing. His involvement in marketing has continued, and he has been a member of the faculty of the “Strategic Retail Management Seminar,” the “Top Management Seminar for Retailers and Suppliers,” “Managing Brand Meaning,” and the “Strategic Marketing Management” executive education programs.

From 1978 to the present, he has been involved in the HBS’ Business History program. In 1992 and 1993, he taught a course entitled “Business, Government, and the International Economy.” He has also taught in numerous executive programs at the Harvard Business School as well as at corporations, including programs in marketing strategy and general management. His published works include Giants of Enterprise: Seven Business Innovators and the Empires They Built, The Watson Dynasty: The Fiery Reign and Troubled Legacy of IBM’s Founding Father and Son, and more recently, Andy Grove: The Life and Times of an American. His latest book, Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look the Facts in the Face — and What to Do About It, was published by Portfolio/The Penguin Group (2010).