In his latest, recently published book, Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, Sydney Finkelstein explores “the characteristic behaviors of the world’s most effective bosses, upending conventional best practices and presenting a new, comprehensive paradigm for developing talent. This book is the first to offer a systematic, empirically based study of what really motivates, inspires, and enables others to achieve their full, potential. It teaches professionals how to be better bosses so that they can unleash unprecedented creativity, engagement, and accomplishment in their teams, generating and regenerating the world’s best talent. And it shows employees in any field how to identify superbosses in their industry so that they can get hired and advance their careers.”

Here are a few of his comments about three:

Miles Davis: “He was single-mindedly focused on music — his music. Nothing gave him more pleasure than those transcendent, almost miraculous nights when he and his musicians were clicking. ‘The music that we were playing together was just unbelievable,’ he said of his first great quintet.’ It was so bad [i.e. exhilarating] it used to send chills through me at night, and it did the same thing to the audiences too.’ As his friend Quincy Jones related, Davis had an almost childlike fascination with his art, what in Buddhism is called beginner’s mind. Because he was constantly seeing music with fresh eyes, he was able to remain open to creative possibilities and he directed his energies toward constant growth as a musician.”

Larry Ellison: “He is known as a huge spawner of talent in the technology field; as Oracle grad and Salesforce.com senior executive Steve Garnett said, ‘I think half of Silicon Valley is run by former Oracle people’…Although Ellison often discussed [in his interview by Finkelstein] the importance of chemistry and teamwork, in reality he led more by intimidation. As he himself noted, ‘I invented my own style of management called MBR. MBR stands for management by ridicule.’ One longtime Oracle employee described the result of this management style: ‘I think Larry was excellent at motivating people when it came to articulating the company’s strategy and where he wanted the company to go. But the rest of his motivation was based on people’s fear and greed.’ Despite Ellison’s hard-driving style, or in some ways perhaps because of it, he had an indisputable knack for boosting people’s careers.”

Norman Brinker: “As Brinker once said, ‘I nurtured people. Over the years, I’ve employed about 1.4 million people and I’ve watched these people grow. Some, who worked in the kitchen, became managers, then store managers, and then executives. There are about seventeen or eighteen heads of major restaurant chains now who worked for me. That’s really thrilling. I never liked having anyone leave. But I was excited to see people take the risk and do something successful’…Superbosses possess the deep, underlying trust that is essential to effective delegation. ’Norman Brinker gave us incredible autonomy,’ one former senior manager told me. ‘We definitely had the ability to fail.’”

* * *

Sydney Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Leadership at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, where he teaches courses on Leadership and Strategy. He is also the Faculty Director of the flagship Tuck Executive Program, and has experience working with executives at a number of other prestigious universities around the world. He holds degrees from Concordia University and the London School of Economics, as well as a Ph.D. from Columbia University in strategic management. Superbosses was published by Portfolio/Penguin Random House (2016).