What a study of 17,000 people revealed about the top business talent

Whether early or late in our careers, most of us don’t think we’ll ever get promoted to the elite circle of people who are CEOs, let alone successful CEOs.

After all, the iconic CEO, the one admired in business media, is tall, white, male, and larger-than-life. He’s a bold, charismatic extrovert with a flawless résumé. A brilliant strategist with impeccable business judgment, jetting around the globe with superhuman confidence. He’s either a visionary prophet, à la Steve Jobs, or a hardened executive warrior, à la Jack Welch. This is a story we have been fed for decades.

The good news is that most successful CEOs don’t look like what we expect to see.

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