I think that one of the best ways to learn leadership isn’t studying “leadership” at all. Instead, study individual leaders in their natural habitat and decide what they do that you want to try. Articles by and about leaders and interviews with them are mini-case studies that show you an actual leader in a real situation.

That’s why, every week, I bring you a selection of post about individual leaders. This week I’m pointing you to posts by and about Tom Leighton, Eva Chen, Brett Wilson, Benoit Daignault, and John Elkann.

From Adam Bryant: Tom Leighton of Akamai, on the Professorial Side of Leadership

“Tom Leighton, chief executive of Akamai Technologies, considers the skills he learned as an academic essential to his position.”

From Vanna Le: How Condé Nast’s Youngest Editor Is Making Normalcy And Failure Cool

“[Eva} Chen, now 34, grew up in New York City as a first generation American. Her parents moved to the U.S. from Taiwan in the late ’70s and expected their daughter to have a future in engineering, law, finance or medicine.  ‘I was very focused on school. No social life whatsoever,’ she boasted about her pre-med education at Johns Hopkins.”

From Adam Bryant:  For Brett Wilson of TubeMogul, It’s All in the Follow-Through

“The chief executive of a video advertising software company says it values people who do what they say — they have a high “do-to-say ratio.”‘”

From Kevin Carmichael: Can this man coax Canada’s reluctant exporters to diversify?

“On the same day in April that Benoit Daignault and I met for lunch at Finemondo, an Italian restaurant a couple of blocks east of the White House, the Financial Times began a week-long series on how the growth of the emerging middle class in countries such as China and Indonesia may have hit a wall.”

From Brent Snavely: Soft-spoken Fiat Chrysler chairman favors strong executive leadership

“In public, [John] Elkann is soft-spoken and deferential. He prefers to let Sergio Marchionne — the gruff, 61-year-old cigarette-smoking CEO of Fiat and Chrysler — do most of the talking. But at 38, Elkann is Marchionne’s boss. He has already been through more boardroom drama than many executives twice his age and holds a list of executive roles and responsibilities that would make many others shrink.”