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If there were an award for outstanding leadership
in modern business and you had to pick the candidates, you
would do well to include the three men profiled in this
book. Each has captured the world's attention and respect
by seeing their company through deep and discontinuous change
while transforming it into a first-class, global organization.
Along the way, they reinvented global business itself and
became models for the successful leader of tomorrow.
Author Kets de Vries was granted unprecedented
access to each of these business titans. And he clearly
made the most of the opportunities. Here, Branson, Barnevik,
and Simon share intimate accounts of how they've created
and sustained innovation in their organizations while commanding
the respect and loyalty of their employees across continents
and cultures. For the first time, these pioneers relate
their dreams and visions, their approaches to leadership,
and their strategies for building and maintaining competitive
global organizations staffed with dedicated, enthusiastic
people.
Despite their distinctly different personal
styles and philosophies, these three men exemplify the combined
power of the charismatic and architectural roles of leaders.
What they share, and what makes their stories so essential
to the study of global leadership today, is their ability
to spread their message with passion and conviction and
to instill in their employees a greater sense of meaning
and purpose in an era rife with cynicism.
But Kets de Vries and Florent-Treacy don't
stop with interviews alone, fascinating as they are. The
authors also focus their keen academic abilities on their
subjects to offer an informed analysis of exactly what it
is that's made these particular men so successful. With
great insight and authority, The New Global Leaders carefully
examines the question of what excellent leadership really
is. The answer is one that every leader and all those concerned
with international business will want to know.
Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries is a professor
at INSEAD, the world's leading global business school, as
well as a practicing psychoanalyst and consultant. Author
of fifteen books, including the award-winning Life and
Death in the Executive Fast Lane (Jossey-Bass, 1995),
he has been featured in the New York Times, Fortune,
The Economist, Harper's, and the Financial
Times. He lives in Paris, France.
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