21 Leaders for the 21st Century

9780071362948

0071362940

A Leadership Beliefs of Michael Dell, Richard Branson, Edgar Bronfman, and Other Global Innovators 21 Top Business Leaders Share Their Visions­­and Explain Their Strategies­­for Successful Leadership in the New Economy Leadership is more than just a skill or technique. It is a style, a mindset. Exceptional leadership provides the capacity to reconcile contrasting players and objectives and turn them into a single, powerful system­­with the ability to function cooperatively and learn from its own activities. 21 Leaders for the 21st Century goes beyond rote skill sets and systems to examine how 21 of today's most accomplished global leaders have confronted­­and overcome­­major dilemmas in building their businesses and guiding their careers. Leading international management consultants and authors Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner join with a cross section of today's most respected experts of business and academia to analyze the successes of leaders including: Michael Dell­­Dell Computers Richard Branson­­Virgin Karel Vursteen­­Heineken Hugo Levecke­­ABN AMRO Mark Moody-Stuart­­Royal Dutch Shell Stan Shih­­Acer Computers Jim Morgan­­Applied Materials To understand effective leadership, you must first understand the behaviors of effective leadership. 21 Leaders for the 21st Century is the first book to examine cutting-edge leadership attitudes­­by focusing on today's most visionary leaders­­and outline a dramatic and innovative leadership process for succeeding in the new economy. "Driving change in your own organization is hard enough; driving change in other organizations is nearly impossible. But we believed and still believe that the Internet will become as pervasive as the phone. We know it was too important to our business and potentially to our customers' businesses to wait for them to figure it out for themselves." ­­Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO, Dell Computers Michael Dell has a head start on leadership in the 21st century. Dell has discovered that leadership is much more than just what you do; it is who you are, and how you manage major business dilemmas in an increasingly diverse marketplace. In the seminal 21 Leaders for the 21st Century, authors Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner­­in collaboration with their colleagues at THT Intercultural Management Consulting­­propose and validate that the essence of leadership is in the resolution of universal dilemmas. Using the personal experiences of a remarkable and diverse group of world-class leaders, this pioneering guide provides a global roadmap for observing, evaluating, and learning from successful leadership behaviors in action. "You should never go into an industry just with the purpose of making money. One has to passionately believe it is possible to change the industry, to turn it on its head, to make sure it will never be the same again. With the right people and with that conviction, anything is possible... Of course, this is not pure altruism ­ there's a profit to be made too." ­­Richard Branson, Founder and CEO, Virgin Interviews and case studies paint a stunning portrait of effective, intuitive, 21 st -century leadership: Edgar Bronfman forces Seagram to confront the "new sobriety"­­simultaneously transforming its values and reengineering its processes David Komansky of Merrill Lynch successfully confronts competitors that are unbundling his firm's cash cow investment services and offering them at dramatically lower rates Anders Knutsen rescues Bang & Olufsen by combining its renowned tradition of immaculate audio design and engineering with modern efficiencies and production te