In this book, Bill George encourages the leaders of tomorrow to ask themselves some of the most fundamental questions that many business managers and leaders are privately and sometimes publicly, asking themselves today. What is my mission in life? What do I want to get out of a career? Which company do I want to work for? How do I make priority calls between my personal life and my career?
Yes, it's framed in the context of the crisis of leadership that we have seen in the last 5 years but if all you take out of this book is that business is all about the long term than the short term then you have remained on a very superficial level. Through his personal insight George merges two powerful themes. What has been wrong with business leadership in the past and what implications and lessons does that have for the leaders of tomorrow?
In this book, George provides frameworks and personal insight into how the leaders of the future can choose to live their lives and lead their businesses but he is never arrogant enough to suggest he has the answers. Instead it is up to the reader to see how George dealt with these questions himself and make up their own decisions about how they would answer them.
And that, in essence, is the breakthrough in this book. Instead of trying to claim that there is a one size fits all template to become a good or even a great leader, George argues that it takes an individual to understand themselves and their personal leadership before they will truly be able to lead an organization. And, only having done this, will the leaders of tomorrow offer the discontinuinty vs. some of the disappointments of the past and present.
If you are already a CEO, the insights in here may not be immediately actionable. If you are like the 99.999% of the rest of us who are not, and ask ourselves about our personal leadership and what impact it has on both us and our businesses, then this is definitely worth a read.
Like many young professionals, I was baptized by fire in a business world that moved at breakneck speeds and was driven primarily by short-term results. As I have never known any other way to do business, I found Mr. George's insights into how he developed his own personal brand of leadership over the course of his career compelling. I most appreciated the fact that, unlike the arrogant texts of some other high-profile CEOs, he does not claim himself to be a model for what you and I should or should not be. His goal is to share his own experiences and allow you the opportunity to form your own opinions about what Authentic Leadership means to you. In fact, he strongly argues that it is not the place of any author or educator to relay to you what is "right" and "wrong" in terms of leadership. Instead, developing your own brand of leadership, one that continues to evolve and change as you gain experience and deal w/ failure, is the only true path to becoming an effective, Authentic Leader. He makes some very convincing arguments as to how Authentic Leaders link the long term needs of customers and employees to enhancing share holder value and he demonstrates his own encounters with morally and ethically challenging situations that serve as a reminder that all of us will have to encounter crossroads at some point in our careers.
I highly recommend Bill George's book as an alternative to the plethora of academic texts on "leadership". It is personal, entertaining, motivational and, most importantly, actionable. Invest a few hours in this book and you will reap the benefits for years to come.