What keeps the CEO awake at night? What one secret will make you more empathic with the boss than anyone else on your team?

It's point number 6 from the ASTD survey that we conducted last week. It's something that we naturally reject-- particularly during this long recession.

6. Only 35% said it was important or essential to know how the C-Suite is being held accountable by Wall Street. Many folks hate Wall Street after all we've experienced in the Crash, but the truth is that your CEO and her team are held accountable every quarter by investors if your stock is listed on an exchange. Every quarter your C-level executives have to Face the Nation, with tough-talking investors, analysts and reporters who pull no punches with your boss. If you really want to why the C-level execs are reeling every quarter, then listen in on the quarterly earnings conference call. It's often recorded on your company's website. Sometimes you'll hear the boss get beat up, challenged and insulted. But you'll understand a lot more about why senior management has made certain decisions about budgets, people, strategy and products. The truth is that Wall Street often has a much to do with whether the CEO lives or dies in her job, but very few of your peers will bother to get the news first hand.

Would you be interested to hear what your CEO thinks of your job? We'll give you our seventh insight tomorrow.

How do you get a better seat at the table with the CEO and the senior management team? How can you get the support and recognition you deserve? We conducted a special survey this week for ASTD that revealed that the top 5 workforce challenges of training managers right now are how to:

1. Stay current with their work and still be a good manager of their team.

2. Justify the budget and ROI of training programs.

3. Get mindshare of employees to apply training.

4. Develop engaging, business-focused content.

5. Get the support from the C-suite that they deserve.

We also surveyed training professionals to learn the best ways to train managers to get better seats at the table with the C-Suite:

1. 96% said it's to essential to know what issues your company's customers are worrying about. The C-Suite values training managers who demonstrate a willingness to become experts about the customer and create programs to make employees better at customer intimacy.

2. 80% said it's essential to know what fears hold employees back and what they perceive training can do for them to create growth and security in their careers.

3. 95% said it's essential to tie every training program clearly and directly to the strategic objectives of the company.

4.88% said pick the right business exec. to be your sponsor. It's critical to keep that person visible throughout the duration of the program.

5. 81% said you must get in your boss' head and know what she's worrying about. But it's lonely at the top, particularly in the C-Suite, because most people don't know number 6.

Find out more about that in our next blog on Thursday. In the meantime, here's a video with Patty Flaherty, the director of HR Strategy at Ford Motor Company . She talks about how leadership development is there to stay--even in the toughest of times:

Tony Hsieh put Success Built to Last and my note to him on the wall at Zappos. (See photo)

Watch for our feature on Zappos, our exclusive Tony interview, and insights into customer service magic coming soon on LeadersoftheNewCentury.com.

Right now I'm across the street from Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. I just interviewed Peter Jensen, CEO of Nykredit, the financial SVCS company that has become a role model for how to run a bank.

There would have never been a Crash if all companies managed like this one. No bailouts here! They always match their loans conservatively. They give their staff incentives to make customer focused decisions that have never been short term and provide free, anonymous, financial hotlines for customers.

Needless to say, their market share has tripled!