21 Leaders for The 21st Century - Hardcover

Trompenaars, Fons

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071362940 ISBN 13: 9780071362948

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 2001

Synopsis

With a client list that includes Motorola, Daewoo, AT&T, and Volvo, Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner are considered today’s most knowledgeable, innovative management consultants. In 21 Leaders for the 21st Century, they tap into the wisdom of high-performing leaders from around the globe—from Michael Dell to Richard Branson—who candidly discuss their own views and experiences in analyzing and solving business dilemmas.

More than just a prescriptive list of leadership skills, this invaluable guide uses case studies, examples, charts, tables, and graphs to show today’s business leaders how to:

• Understand—and act upon—the 7 major dilemmas of leadership
• Identify major business dilemmas in the transnational community
• Implement strategies for sustaining emerging entrepreneurship

About this title

From the Back Cover:

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, 21st-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 technologies

Central to effective leadership is the act of shouldering­­and resolving­­numerous conflicting dilemmas. 21 Leaders for the 21st Century shows how a select group of today's most accomplished leaders has succeeded at resolving distinct and dissimilar dilemmas while, at the same time, integrating the disparate solutions into a viable whole. The result is a wholly new­­and newly energizing­­treatment that redefines the roles of corporate leadership for the next generation of global leaders.

From the Inside Flap:

What makes a great leader in the new world of business?
What are the key attributes of great modern leaders?
What can you learn from the greatest leaders in the world?

Is the business world entering a new leadership era? Are new leadership skills necessary to compete globally? Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner reveal in 21 Leaders for the 21st Century that the leaders of global corporations are beset by a series of dilemmas, pairs of conflicting propositions that clamour for their attention. Successful leadership depends on the capacity to integrate these demands and create powerful strategies that unite them.

Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner have studied and interviewed hundreds of chief executives around the world and a striking pattern has emerged. Transcultural competence and the ability to integrate seemingly opposed cultural values are among the most important skills of the coporate leader.

Business results improve immeasurably when leaders are aware of, respect, and celebrate cultural diversity within their orgnaization. Great leaders actively manage the complexity and ambiguity of their environments and are determined to benefit from the vast opportunities and advantages presented by cultural variety., For corporate leaders this awareness is a critical component of long term success.

21 Leaders for the 21st Century redfines leadership. Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner tap into the wisdom of high-performing leaders from around the globe, from Micahel Dell to Acer's Stan Shih and from Richard Branson to Russian politician and banker, Sergei Kiriyenko. These business giants candidly reveal their personal experiences of business dilemmas. 21 Leaders for the 21st Century uses these important insights into the nature of leadership to show today's managers how to understand and use the seven dilemmas of leadership.

About this edition

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0071362940
• ISBN 13: 9780071362948
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 356