De Cremer opens his book with the crux of the problem – a story of how an organization invests huge sums in AI to make its processes leaner and more efficient and a year on pull-the-plug, as little efficiency is being realized while the cash continues to race into a blackhole. The reason he posits […]
Book Review Subject: Leadership
Infectious Generosity
In this book, Chris Anderson starts by reflecting on these events as an early example of infectious generosity; giving that inspires others to give too. Having first given his content and then his brand away, Anderson is well-placed to write about this. He has worked with billionaires and academics, wealthy business leaders and street-smart activists. […]
Power to the Middle
Right from the start the authors’ recognize these attributes stating ‘that the smartest executives will do everything in their power to keep their best middle managers where they and reward them’ and then explaining that in many instances this is infact the correct approach, but it needs to be carefully managed. Too often people are […]
Higher Ground
The author is a business school professor however – and as such is tasked with finding a pragmatic, and teachable, route forward through this morass of complexity and contradictions. It is also worth reminding ourselves that all corporate titans are also humans, most with children of their own who frequently will challenge them – they […]
Capitalism and Crises
Few people have a better understanding of the role corporations play in society than Prof Mayer who has been honing his thinking on the issue for over two decades. While this book sees that there is an urgent need for reform, and highlights plenty of areas where the current model of capitalism is failing humanity […]
Bend the Knee or Seize the Throne
The book explores the various characters and their leadership styles from the TV series Game of Thrones itself adapted from the fantasy novel series of George R R Martin’s book series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’. The reader will benefit from a knowledge of the characters and plot-lines of the eight series of GoT, […]
The Model Black
While the focus in Barbara Banda’s book is on black leaders, the stories shared are not entirely unlike the experiences endured by other communities in the workplace. As a reader, expect to learn the following from stories shared in The Model Black: The Model Black is a rich source of practical advice, both for leaders […]
Leadership
At the start of this short book Grint explores the old saw, the difference between leadership and management. He is quite direct in tackling this. Leaders are there to resolve emerging, unknown problems, most probably ‘wicked’ ones. That is those which do not have clear, linear solutions. If there is a known resolution to a problem, if […]
Too Proud to Lead
The route to hubris a beguiling and the authors depict that in an all too familiar mini case study, which is worth repeating in full here: In times of crisis, high-risk or a threat from external forces, such as a sudden hostile takeover bid, a company will look to the CEO to step up to […]
Leading Remotely
At the heart of this book is Parkes’s distinction between ‘single-site’ leaders and ‘multi-site’ leaders. If we are to track a leader’s career progression at some point fairly early on in their leadership journey they will move from managing and leading a team that is close to them, to one which is more dispersed, at […]