THE BOSSES

• The Curse of the Superster CEO. Prof. Rakesh Khurana. Harvard Business Review, September 2002. Comprehensive demonstration of the false attribution fallacy. CEO's are less important than they and their admirers think!
• Holes at the Top: Why CEO firings backfire. Margarethe Wiersema. Harvard Business Review. Interesting research demonstrating that the classical solution of firing the CEO seldom works in resolving performance problems - and why.
• Managing Quietly. Henry Mintzberg, Leader to Leader Institute Quarterly. Spring 1999. Good demonstration that high egos and bombast do not realise the best results.
• Letter to a CEO. J Fuller. Harvard Business Review, October 2001. Packed with common sense.
• Bad Company: The strange cult of the CEO. Gideon Haigh. Aurum books, 2004. Must read insightful Mickey take of the rubbish put about by the press and some academics about business leaders. Very enjoyable and quite short.
• Chapter 3, 'Management'. Having Their Cake, Don Young and Pat Scott, Kogan Page, 2004. An analysis of top managers in Britain, who they are, what they are like and what turns them on.