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 pieces by and about Ole Schou, Marc Lesser, Ramzi Rizk, Shel Kaphan, and Julie Wainwright.

From Matthew Gwyther: Fertility business: The entrepreneur who’s created 60,000 kids

“Assisted conception is now a multi-billion pound global industry and people have offspring in ways hardly dreamed of 40 years ago.”

From Elliot Begoun: A Zen priest, an entrepreneur and an author walk into an interview

“This is the latest in a series called Lead Human, which features interviews and profiles conducted by Elliot Begoun in search of answers to the question ‘What is it like to be a leader?’ As he writes in his introduction to this series, ‘There has been some incredible wisdom and teaching shared on topics such as; the definition of leadership, how to lead, and what it takes to develop leaders. But, I have found little on what it is actually like once you get there.’”

From Ways We Work: Ramzi Rizk, CTO & Co-Founder of EyeEm

“As someone who is passionate about digital product design and photography as I am, speaking with Ramzi from EyeEm gave me a unique perspective on how you can merge skills and passion into one really meaningful project. Ramzi opens up about how he got EyeEm started and how he overcame some challenges along the way. He speaks to some of the challenges of moving into a leadership role as CTO and what that process looked like for him.”

From Craig Cannon: A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee

“Shel Kaphan was the first em­ployee at Ama­zon. He is cur­rently pur­su­ing per­sonal in­ter­ests and still liv­ing in Seattle.”

Thanks to Smartbrief on Leadership for pointing me to this story.

From Denise Restauri: After Losing Her Husband And Her Company, This Woman Found Her True Grit

“Julie Wainwright is the founder of The RealReal, the online luxury resale store where users buy and sell authenticated, pre-owned luxury goods like a Chanel bag, a Cartier watch or an Hermès side table. Wainwright has had a rollercoaster career, filled with highs and lows. High: she sold a company called Reel.com for $100 million. Followed by a big dip: Pets.com the company she was leading (remember the sock puppet mascot?) bombed in 2000. And now she’s riding high again with The RealReal. How did she make a comeback? First she needed to figure out a few things about failure, relationships and herself. Julie is authentic and tells it like it is, and her mentoring moment (in her words) is very real:”