All the Way to the Top: A Practical Guide for Corporate and Business Leadership

About the Design of this Book

In support of the information contained herein, various references are provided, reflecting the extensiveness of the scholarly research and topic review. Thus, you will observe frequent citations and source identifiers in the following form: "(author, year, page)." Additionally, as key business and technical concepts are discussed--such as capital budgeting, analytical marketing, and statistical applications--tutorial information will be provided to assure reader comprehension. And finally, key leadership insights are offered to solidify understanding of character execution of the presented strategies and theory.

Author and journalist Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Show the readers everything, tell them nothing." Thus, you will note I have liberally used diagrams, charts, and graphs as my intent is to take advantage of Hemingway's sentiments to aid you in comprehending the concepts and strategies presented.

The first chapter focuses on leadership definitions, theories, and principles. Building on this foundation, discussion of a key piece of corporate and organizational infrastructure (the performance appraisal) follows, which is linked to the theory presented. An overview of corporate structure follows, with emphasis on corporate initiation, implementation, and operation. You are then introduced to a simulated corporation, Summit Consumables Incorporated.

Next comes a systematized discussion of inputs, processing, and outputs (IPO). Then I introduce my leadership improvement model (the 5C LIM). This model is applied by a simulation that demonstrates how to handle corporate and business scenarios seen in the examples of six Summit Consumables employees as they respond to performance evaluation results.

Bolstered by previously reviewed leadership strategies, the book then offers leadership-oriented approaches--purpose, preparation, perception, persuasion, and power (the 5 Ps)--for development and delivery of individual presentations, leveraging the previously introduced Summit Consumables employees.

The final chapter demonstrates how stages of the 5C LIM may be used as a stand-alone model to circumvent issues and opportunities occurring in the typical world of leaders.