From the (not so) small talk, Bill moved to performance: What are you working on? How is it going? How could he help? Then, we would always get to peer relationships, which Bill thought were more important than relationships with your manager and other higher-ups.

The choice of how to lead is more than a skill. It is a reflection of both the leader himself and of the culture he or she has created for the company. I once told an audience of corporate salespeople how impressed I was with Tom May from Nstar in Boston. NStar is Massachusetts’s largest investor-owned electrical gas utility. He could get anything