Decisions, Decisions: What Separates Leaders From the Rest The real leaders are those who take action.

Any time I have a tough decision to make, I wonder what James Burke would do.

Burke isn't a household name, certainly not in the modern pantheon of entrepreneurial leaders like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. But that's not surprising. Burke spent nearly 40 years with the same company—Johnson & Johnson (13 of them as chairman and CEO)—then went into public service as chairman of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. Neither role is "hip" to the modern entrepreneur.