One of the best books I've read on leadership in several years is by a former big-company CEO who is now a professor. Willie Pietersen's third book is Leadership - The Inside Story.

In this fast-moving conversation, we hear about how Nelson Mandela learned, unlearned, and relearned the central tenets of philosophy and leadership well before his vision of a unified country could become a reality.

We also learn how a diamond is formed and how those three forces apply to leadership. The question that won a war is profound, as is finding out what happens when an elder dies.