Shareholders have reason to toast Welch's leadership. Business Week in 1998 reported that nobody has returned larger profits to shareholders than Welch.

"No one, not Microsoft's William H. Gates III or Intel's Andrew S. Grove, not Walt Disney's Michael D. Eisner or Berkshire Hathaway's Warren E. Buffett, not even the late Coca-Cola chieftain Roberto C. Goizueta or the late Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton has created more shareholder value than Jack Welch," business writer John A. Byrne wrote.

GE observers agree that a large part of the company's success stems from the strength of the leadership beneath Welch. While GE had a strong field of seven managers to choose from in its search for Welch's successor, other businesses such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard and 3M have had to turn outward in their searches.

Indeed, many have turned to GE. W. James McNerny Jr., one of GE's top three contenders for CEO, was snatched up by 3M when GE handed the torch to Jeffrey R. Immelt, former president and CEO of GE Medical Systems.

Similarly, Stanley Works picked up as its chair and CEO John M. Trani, head of GE Medical Systems before McNerny.

"GE is the number one developer of other companies' key executive officers," says James W. Buckman, a GE observer and co-director of the Juran Center for Leadership in Quality at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. He estimates that about 25 to 35 of the Fortune 500 CEOs have come from GE.

Tichy attributes GE's success in developing leaders to Welch's priorities.

"Leaders build culture, cultures don't build leaders," Tichy says. "He has the understanding that you win the game of business by developing leaders at all levels of your organization."

"GE, if you consider the training and development of leaders, is the bigger business school than the Harvard Business School," he says.

Apart from its annual $500 million investment on training and education programs worldwide, GE's strong reservoir of talent is largely due to Welch's focus on his employees.

His handwritten notes to workers keep the faxes humming, and he knows by sight the names and duties of at least the top 1,000 people in GE.

NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw says it is this attention to detail and to people that is the secret to Welch's success.

"He is familiar with his vast enterprise--he knows about every widget and every dime," Brokaw says.

Part of the premium Welch places on people can be seen in his development of Crotonville, where he is a familiar figure. The 52-acre New York GE campus is the first major corporate business school in the world where everyone from newly-hired college graduates to division heads gather to learn from each other and, frequently, the big man himself.

"Our technology, our great businesses, our reach, our resources aren't enough to make us the global best unless we always have the best people--people who are always stretching to become better," Welch said in his annual April address to shareowners this year.