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 Amazon, Bob Iger, Salesforce, Brooks, and Deb Dugan.

From Christopher Mims: The Limits of Amazon

“Amazon.com Inc. is a colossus. In the near future, it could even surpass Apple Inc. as the world’s largest publicly traded company. But whether you think it will get there depends on how big you think the market is for the products and services Amazon is best at. One secret to Amazon’s amazing scalability is this: Not everything is an Amazon business.”

From Tara Lachapelle: Iger’s (Extended) Last Act

“It’s the riskiest move Iger has made, but it’s also a necessary one and shows the same prescience as his smaller purchases, not to mention a financial discipline that stands out in an age marked by frothy, debt-fueled deals.”

From the Economist: Masterful salesmanship has pushed Salesforce to ever-greater heights

“But will the world’s fourth-largest software firm live up to its founder’s soaring expectations?”

From Claire Suddath: Brooks Needs Runners Who Hate to Run

“The $500 million company has conquered runners. Now it has to figure out everyone else.”

From Whitney Johnson: Deb Dugan: Stepping Back to Grow

“For Deb Dugan, guest on the Disrupt Yourself podcast, the step back to grow was a move from Wall Street attorney to head of a nonprofit: Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. She took a $70,000 a year pay cut, despite being early career and neck deep in student debt. Today, Deb is the CEO of (RED), founded by U2 front man, Bono, in partnership with Bobby Shriver, whose father was a founder of the Peace Corps. (RED) has the ambitious goal of eradicating AIDS in our lifetime, and pursues this noble objective through a variety of disruptive social media and marketing initiatives.”