Have a look at Good to Great[0]. It's basically breaking down the qualities that make for the best CEO's, and the results are as research based as they could get, and also deliver some interesting conclusions.
"The future is always hard to predict, and understanding the past is valuable; on the other hand, the implicit message of these business books is that the principles that these companies use not only have made them good in the past, but position them for continued success."
If you're going to read that book, I'd suggest you read "The Halo Effect" as well. It talks about how questionable the "retrospective" research from these books is.
Some of the companies listed went from good to great to below average to completely gone.
http://freakonomics.com/2008/07/28/from-good-to-great-to-bel...
As the author points out in the above link
"The future is always hard to predict, and understanding the past is valuable; on the other hand, the implicit message of these business books is that the principles that these companies use not only have made them good in the past, but position them for continued success."
Another example that comes to mind is Ron Johnson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Johnson_(businessman)
He did great at Target and then at Apple but almost brought down JC Pennny