The desirable qualities of the chief executive are the abilities to adopt himself to given circumstances and to carry out his functions effectively, thereby contributing to the development of a business firm. These abilities can be described only in broad, abstract terms such as "entrepreneurship" and "administratorship." The abilities required of chief executives differ depending on the environment in which they are placed or the functions they are to perform. For example, in the electronics industry where the environment is now improving, intuition is the most important equirement ; while in the sake-brewing industry chief executives are required to have calculating abilities because of unfavorable changes in its environment. When thinking out the future business concept, the president should excel in intuition, insight and imagination. But, for strategic decision-making, such qualities as belief, judgement and generosity assume greater importance. It is a sense of responsibility and a calculating ability that count most in business management and control. The desirable abilities of the chief executive differ with the required functions and the environment surrounding the business enterprise. Thus, properly speaking it is very difficult to define such abilities by large scale observation. The usual approach is to limit the environment and functions to specific examples and then pursue the desirable abilities within these limits. This method is similar to that adopted in case study and in research on the history of business administration. In this paper, however, an attempt is made to identify the desirable abilities of top management by large scale observation. Instead of trying to identify abilities directly, I intend to pursue them indirectly by observing a large number of objective factors which are related to the chief executive's abilities, i.e., surrogates. Full utilization of these surrogates will hopefully make it possible to obtain general hypotheses in which the special circumstances of individual enterprises are removed.