"No charismatic figurehead leader, but leadership that focuses on building the organization instead of investing their time in extensive PR work."
I find it interesting that a company's leadership appears to be valued just like this by people inside the company, but that people outside the company often value it in the opposite way.
I happen to be reading "Good to Great", the followup to this book, and I find its idea of "Level 5 Leadership" pretty interesting. Basically "Level 5 Leaders" are the exact opposite of what you typically think of as a CEO - self-effacing, stay in the background, rarely take credit for their successes, generally attributing them to luck or to the great people who work for them. But there's a paragraph that talks about how that's the exact wrong personality you need to become a CEO - generally the self-promoting, egotistical types get the nod, and that's why there are vanishingly few great companies.
I find it interesting that a company's leadership appears to be valued just like this by people inside the company, but that people outside the company often value it in the opposite way.