Learning from leaders

When Andy Grove got his PhD from the University of California , Berkeley , in 1963, he was a corporate recruiter's dream candidate. He had a number of job options, perhaps the best of which was with Bell Labs, then the Mecca of research in solid-state physics. But Grove made a different choice. Rather than head for Bell Labs, he joined Fairchild Semiconductor, a West Coast upstart, where he worked under the legendary Gordon Moore, who led the company's research operation. That was an early example of out-of-the-box thinking from Grove, who five years later left Fairchild with Moore and others to co-found Intel.

Learn about personal growth from 25 of the most influential leaders of our era. Andrew Grove is given special attention:

Grove's leadership of Intel -- marked as it has been by unconventional thinking, imagination and integrity -- contributed this month to his being named the most influential business leader of the past 25 years by Wharton and Nightly Business Report (NBR), the most watched daily business program on U.S. television.

The 25 leaders selected as most influential are these:

Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics; Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com; John Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group; Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Group; Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway; James Burke, former CEO of Johnson & Johnson; Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Computers; Peter Drucker, the educator and author; Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft; William George, former CEO of Medtronics; Louis Gerstner, former CEO of IBM; Alan Greenspan, Chairman, U.S. Federal Reserve; Andy Grove, chairman of Intel; Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrysler; Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers; Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest Airlines; Peter Lynch, former manager of Fidelity's Magellan Fund; Charles Schwab, founder of Charles Schwab Inc.; Frederick Smith, CEO of Federal Express; George Soros, founder and chairman of Open Society Institute; Ted Turner, founder of CNN; Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart; Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric; Oprah Winfrey, chairman of the Harpo group of companies; and Mohammed Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank.