Leadership is an essential aspect of today's business. Leader can be described as a person who guides and supports his subordinates to achieve a common goal. Leader should possess a number of specific skills that may help him to organise and direct a group of people. Successful leadership requires a range of special qualities, such as communication skills or an ability to work under pressure.

Three recent articles (Cappelli et al. 2010, Ladkin and Weber 2011, Useem 2010) have analysed a variety of characteristics of successful leaders. However, all three authors analyse this topic from the different perspectives. While the reflection by Useem is related to the military view, the reports by Ladkin & Weber and Cappelli et al. focus on the attributes of successful leaders in conditions of Hong Kong tourism industry and Indian business respectively. All authors concur that one of the most important factors for outstanding leadership is an connection with a team. This review will compare these articles in regard to three main aspects of successful leadership, focus on mission, team work and making decisions.

All three articles provide an idea about establishing company’s mission as a top priority. Cappelli et al. and Ladkin & Weber point out that taking a long-term view is a crucial for the success of the organization (Cappelli et al. p.92, Ladkin&Weber p.278). At the same time, Useem argues that even though ‘focus on mission’ is one of the most important principles for leaders, they should always take into account the interests of team members and only after that leaders may pursue their own benefits (p.4). Another significant point of all three articles is a necessity to inspire employees to pursue the interests of the company. However, all three authors describe the different approaches to deal with this challenge. While Ladkin & Weber assert that it is