Success can breed success, but as management strategist and author Jim Collins demonstrated in Good to Great (and in his subsequent volume written with Morten Hansen Great by Choice) too often companies begin to think that things will be better because they have been good in the past.

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Saj-Nicole Joni: You and Morten Hansen started your research for your new book, Great by Choice, about nine years ago before the BP oil spill, the Great Recession, the frightening instability of the euro, the nuclear meltdown in Japan, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street ever took place.

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He had no choice but to do the unthinkable -- close the farm started by his great-grandfather.

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Clearly, the "great man" theory of history will always be ripe for debate, but as shown by a choice reading of CEOs the presence of a strong, charismatic leader can hold more sway in business than elsewhere.

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