Bill Gates has solidified his standing as the most-admired business leader among small-business owners.
Warren Buffett, President Bush, Lee Iacocca, Herb Kelleher, Michael Dell, Oprah Winfrey and Ross Perot trail the Microsoft founder, according to a survey by research firm Cicco and Associates Inc.
When the question was last posed to small-business owners in 1995, Gates tied Iacocca, and they were followed by Perot, Buffett, Steve Forbes, Sam Walton and Lou Gerstner.
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For the current survey, conducted in the summer, more than 400 small-business owners were asked to write down the name of the American business leader they most admired or check a box that said, “No one comes to mind.”
Fifty-four percent of the business owners checked the “no one” box, up from nearly 43 percent in 1995. Cicco said the increase was likely tied to “the Enron-type revelations and cushy retirement packages of some well-known American business leaders.”
In total, 60 names were entered, but only eight received more than 1 percent of the votes. Gates came in with 9.4 percent, followed by Buffett at 5.2 percent and Bush at 4.4 percent.