Instead of studying leadership, why not spend some time studying leaders and strategies in the wild? You can learn a lot from leadership experts, but you always see the leader and what he or she does through the expert’s personal lens. Supplement that learning with studying real leaders in real life situations and draw your own conclusions. The posts in this series will help you.

Every week I’ll point you to articles by and about real leaders in real situations and to articles about how real companies are faring in the marketplace. Read them. Think about them. Draw your own lessons and conclusions from them. Then try to apply those lessons in your own real life.

This week I’m pointing you to articles about Ralph Stayer, Lee Thayer, Jostein Solheim, Nirav Tolia, and Terrence R. Curtin.

From Steve Jagler: Johnsonville Sausage chairman offers 7 key questions business leaders should ask themselves

“Ralph Stayer humbly refers to himself as a ‘simple country butcher.’ To emphasize the point, he holds up his left hand, which is missing two fingertips he lost in a meat-cutting accident at the age of 17 in the butcher shop owned by his parents in Johnsonville.”

From Steve Jagler: The business guru whose advice saved Johnsonville Sausage

“For Stayer, the turning point came in 1982, when he heard a lecture by Thayer, a former professor and chairman of the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.”

From Bill Snyder: Jostein Solheim: Do Things You Passionately Believe In

“The Ben & Jerry’s CEO discusses how he re-radicalized a left-leaning ice cream company.”

From Tracey Lien: Nirav Tolia turned small-town Texas values into a global social network

“The son of immigrant physicians from India, Tolia grew up in Odessa, Texas (the same Odessa from ‘Friday Night Lights’), where he attended Odessa Permian High School (yes, the same one from the book and movie). Rather than boring him, his small-town upbringing laid the groundwork for the start-ups he’d be drawn to in the future.”

From Jane Von Bergen: How a small-town guy from Reading learned to lead a global company

“These days, Terrence R. Curtin, 49, travels around the world, leading a global, $12.2 billion highly technical company, TE Connectivity Ltd. That’s a lot of globe-trotting for a guy who grew up in Reading, didn’t even leave town to go to college, and still, with an address in Lancaster, doesn’t live too far from his elementary school.”