In the end, it's all personal.

A few months ago, I interviewed Umesh Ramakrishnan, author of There's No Elevator to the Top (hitting bookstores this week). A snippet of the interview (not verbatim): ME: You end the book with what I think leadership is all about. That, in the end, it's is all personal -- how do you think leadership changed and challenged the people you interviewed? UMESH: I think in most cases it humbled them. When you finally discover that the buck really stops with you, that almost every decision you make can't go anywhere else and that decision affects hundreds or thousands of other people. You feel that sense of responsibility. You can find the full interview over on our podcasts blog.