1. Are We Willing to Strive for Level Five Leadership?

The best leaders Collins studied had several attributes in common, including humility, an unquenchable desire to learn, a commitment to service and ambition, all channeled into enterprises that were bigger and more important than they were.

Employees tend to be more motivated, Collins said, when their focus is on serving a cause or enterprise rather than their CEO.

Collins emphasized that leadership is completely separate of personality, with many of the best CEOs - past and present - being shy, soft-spoken or unlikely to stand out in a crowd.

"Most of the great leaders we studied had a charisma bypass," Collins said. "It was surgically removed at birth."