The Hay Group and Chief Executive magazine have released the results of their annual Best Companies for Leaders survey for 2008. While the list itself is interesting for both the companies that made it and those that didn't I found some of the other survey findings to be even more useful

• 83% of the best in class organizations surveyed value execution most in their leaders
• 70% of the top 20 companies have a formal process for identifying individuals for leadership roles
• 65% say that talent management is driven by a clear business strategy
• 65% hold senior managers accountable for commitment
• 55% have formal programs to accelerate leader development
• 63% create a sense of purpose by communicating values
• 62% of all respondents indicated that matrixed roles are increasing in their organizations
• 45% of the top 20 companies honor leaders within the organization

Those results should be interesting to anyone wanting to be a better leader or anyone who looking to understand what sets successful companies apart from their competition. And if you're looking for a new position at a company that values and develops leaders, here are the 20 Best Companies for Leaders in 2008 -

   1. 3M Company (15)
   2. Procter & Gamble (2)
   3. General Electric (1)
   4. Coca-Cola (5)
   5. HSBC Holdings (14)
   6. ABB
   7. Southwest Airlines
   8. IBM
   9. Hewlett-Packard (10)
  10. PepsiCo (7)
  11. Nokia
  12. Accenture Ltd.
  13. FedEx
  14. Infosys Technologies Ltd.
  15. McDonald's Corporation (18)
  16. Caterpillar
  17. American Express
  18. Cisco Systems
  19. Oracle
  20. Intel Corporation

You can find out more about the study, including resources such as podcasts, videos, whitepapers and articles at the Hay Group website.