"It is not essential to have a big ego to be a successful CEO," says Deepak Chopra, a physician who has helped make alternative healing respectable in the U.S. He laments that American society has been trained to measure business success solely by the calculation of shareholder value. That, in turn, has bred a generation of top executives who have "bought into the idea of ego, power, extravagance, arrogance and total disregard for other people's feelings," says Chopra.

Chopra's definition of a good leader. The best ones are understated; they don't overshadow their companies, says Chopra. He calls it "servant leadership," a humble style of leading that can be very effective.

According to Chopra, the ultimate test of business leadership is what happens to a company after the CEO leaves. By that criterion, even the hallowed Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, does not make his first team, Chopra says, suggesting that GE hasn't done as well in the immediate aftermath of Welch's departure. Indeed, Chopra asserts that a roster of top performing corporations would put Wells Fargo and Philip Morris ahead of GE, yet "you don't know their CEOs' names." He asks why, and answers his own question: "Because these people were not into themselves; their goal was not adulation or power for themselves but to create a great company."

After five and a half years of running her family business - a company founded nearly 80 years ago by her grandfather and run for 50 years by her father - Lynda Barness, president of The Barness Organization, home builders based in Bucks County, Pa., has distilled similar insights about the essence of leadership. "I have learned that it is necessary to navigate rather than rule," she says. "I have learned that we all have strengths and weaknesses, and a leader needs to evaluate that personally and in others, and play to their strengths. It really means knowing your own limits and that of other people."

Her strength is in sales and marketing, Barness says. A vice president is in charge of construction. The chairman of the board has an accounting background and supervises the financials. Her best instructors were her grandfather and father. From them, she says, "I learned not only to build neighborhoods but to be a good neighbor. I learned that one needs a moral compass, that loyalty and respect are earned and that good communications are vital."

Barness sees the people who work at the business as an extended family. The company has about 70 employees. A "sense of responsibility" to them guides her actions. "I know that I am responsible for 70 families, so I never lose sight of that."

More than 20 years after starting her marketing firm, Toplin & Associates - a Fort Washington, Pa.-based firm that employs 10 people full-time and half a dozen more as independent contractors and last year took in $1.4 million in net fees - Ellen Toplin says she is still embarrassed when someone calls her the boss. Her leadership style hinges on being compassionate and honest and not having a big ego. "It's the old social worker in me," she says, referring to her previous career. She also cherishes consistency in her behavior.

"I think who I am in business is who I am as a person," says Toplin, adding that she is "in touch" with who she is, appreciates her strengths and is aware of her weaknesses and works to overcome them. She is also not afraid to be honest and open. "That's what, I think, has made me successful," she suggests. There are frustrations. Sometimes she finds herself raising her voice with clients who get "unreasonable or disrespectful." For the most part though, she prefers to "vent in a safe environment" - getting off the phone and sharing a frustrating encounter with her colleagues.

She turned to entrepreneurship after coming to the conclusion that there were "financial limitations" to working as a social worker. But now she has concluded that money isn't everything. More and more she is volunteering to help. Among her causes: The Red Cross, the Girl Scouts, the Forum of Executive Women. "There is a higher purpose in life than how much money is made or how much power is exerted," she says.

Barry Rabner, CEO of University Medical Center at Princeton, a complex of healthcare facilities in the Princeton, N.J., area, confronts some uniquely stressful leadership challenges. "The institution is involved in issues of life and death," he says. "Most people we serve are under enormous stress and the employees also are under considerable stress. Then you add the layer of financial pressures, the need to operate profitably, and it is a difficult setting."

He is currently leading an effort to replace the hospital's acute care campus. That has made huge demands on his time for everything from strategic planning to fund-raising to ensuring community support for the project. "I have the ability to get different constituencies to align around a shared vision," he says of enlisting the cooperation of physicians, employees, donors and members of the local community.

But he confesses he is keeping a close eye on a couple of potential frailties: "One thing I have found more difficult recently is being cautious about not acting, or making decisions unilaterally, making sure that I am getting input from knowledgeable people. It is so much faster and easier just to make the decision, but when you do it by yourself it is often not right."

Another challenge, he says, is "controlling yourself emotionally." He's good at it, he hastens to add, but it is getting "more and more difficult. You often find yourself in a tense situation with upset or angry people and helping to manage that calmly is challenging. You try to be rational when you want to crawl over the table and choke the person."

But perhaps the biggest temptation someone like him has to guard against is not the urge to throttle people angry at him, but the urge to believe his own press releases. "Hospitals tend to be very hierarchical, and when you are CEO it is amazing to see how deferential people are toward you. You can actually take that seriously and make a mistake," Rabner says.

How has he saved himself from falling into that deadly leadership trap? "You rely on your wife and kids to maintain a grasp of reality."