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 Alexa von Tobel, Anjali Sud, Eric Mosley, Bask Iyer, and Karen Firestone.

From Adam Bryant: LearnVest CEO: Being your own boss is ‘like getting punched in the face every day’

“Sometimes there are those moments when the notion of work-life balance can seem like a cosmic joke. For Alexa von Tobel, it occurred in March 2015, when the birth of her first child coincided with selling LearnVest, the online financial advisory firm she founded, to Northwestern Mutual in a deal reported to be more than $250 million.”

Thanks to Smartbrief on Leadership for pointing me to this story

From Anjali Sud: Being vulnerable and impatient at Amazon prepared me to lead Vimeo

“After a major business pivot, the video platform named then 33-year-old Anjali Sud CEO last year. Two lessons from her Amazon days readied her for the role.”

From Gabriel Perna: Globoforce CEO On Why Grumpy Bosses Are Culture Killers

“It isn’t just the mantra for the cloud-based software firm out of Framingham, Mass, it’s an ideology. There are WorkHuman conferences, social media communities, and much more. It’s helped the company, whose software helps companies recognize employee performance, take advantage of a changing paradigm in corporate culture.”

From Peter High: Simultaneously The CIO And CDO Of Dell And VMware – Bask Iyer Does It All

“Iyer has the rare distinction of being both the CIO and chief digital officer of both companies in addition to being the Executive Vice President of Dell Digital. As such, he has leadership roles in two publicly traded companies. (Dell has a majority ownership stake in VMware.) He began his tenure with the companies as the CIO of VMware alone, when Michael Dell asked him to take over the same responsibilities at Dell. To Iyer’s surprise, he was not asked to relinquish responsibilities at VMware.”

From Karen Firestone: How One CEO Prepared Her Organization for Her Retirement

“Last year I decided it was time to shake things up at our investment management company. After 12 years as president and then CEO, I thought it was time to shift some of my responsibilities to my partners.”

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