"It would have been simple to make the easy but wrong decision. Meg chose the harder right decision," says Anthony Noto, Internet analyst at Goldman Sachs, which has a banking relationship with eBay. "The eBay community is a democratic state, and it could have been corrupted by Yahoo!"

It's unclear whether great leaders are born or bred, and, in Whitman's case, the mystery continues. She began her career in brand management at Procter & Gamble, where she learned that the customer always comes first. Later, as a consultant for business management firm Bain, she worked in an environment that was relatively decentralized; partners had independence, and being part of the firm required collaboration, not control.

Whitman also changed jobs fairly frequently, which forced her to stay open. Moving from P&G to Bain to Disney to Stride Rite to FTD to Hasbro to eBay, she was often a new person in complex environments. She didn't always have authority and had to work hard to quickly earn the respect of new colleagues. She had to get things done in places where she was not well known or well established. And this required listening, learning, collaboration, and building relationships based on influencing people.

For her part, Whitman says you need "strategic agility" to lead today. She credits Frank Wells, Disney's late president and chief operating officer, for teaching her the importance of executive humility and cites Omidyar for showing her corporate flexibility.

She may be nurturing, but nobody mistakes Whitman's sensitivity for weakness. In fact, she is a strong believer in maintaining boundaries. That's why she banned the sale of weapons on eBay's site. "Meg is a hybrid, and that's the model for the future," says Tierney: "a decisive general manager combined with an open-minded influencer."

Most CEO s today don't measure up to those standards. And most companies aren't as organically run as eBay--especially those saddled with heavy capital investment needs that prevent nimble moves and those that haven't yet invested fully in the Internet.

But it is still early days in the current corporate revolution, which is quietly fomenting a culture of selfless management in a growing number of enterprises. And just as eBay is more than a platform for digital interaction, this managerial upheaval promises more than a series of corner-office coups. Indeed, if there were more Meg Whitmans sitting in cubes today, companies might have an easier time attracting and retaining talented performers who can drive revenue and profits--as well as America's pre-eminent knowledge-based economy.

BORN: Aug. 4, 1956 EDUCATION: B.A., Princeton University; M.B.A., Harvard University FAMILY: Married, two children CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: President and CEO of eBay since 1998; president of Florists Transworld Delivery (FTD), 1995-97; named the most powerful woman in American business by FORTUNE, 2004 ON LEADERSHIP : Executive leadership is a span of influence, not of control.