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 Mark Zuckerberg, Harold Jarche, Jen Grogono, and Aaron Levie.

From Farhad Manjoo: How Mark Zuckerberg Became Too Big to Fail

“Facebook has had a turbulent two years. But almost no one in tech thinks Mr. Zuckerberg, the social network’s chief executive, should step down from the company he built.”

From Harold Jarche: understanding leadership

“My introduction to leadership came fairly early, as I was in Army Cadets and took my first leadership course at age fourteen. Every Summer through high school I would go to Cadet camp, with other boys who looked, acted, and sounded like me. I finished school and joined the Army thinking I had leadership potential. The Army thought so, as I was accepted into military college to become an officer.”

From Art Kleiner: Simplicity, Synergy, and Scale

“Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chair of Tata Sons, sets a strategic course for the 21st century.”

From McKinsey & Company: From start-up to scale: A conversation with Box CEO Aaron Levie

“The cloud-service cofounder and CEO talks about innovation, disruption, and harnessing the next big thing.”

For some ideas about how to get more from this series of posts, check out “Studying Leaders in the Wild.“