Nightly Business Report Presents Lasting Leadership : What You Can Learn from the Top 25 Business People of our Times

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Summary: A Great Leadership Book to read
Review: Organizations need leaders, but natural leaders are at least as rare as natural athletes. And, even natural athletes need careful training and development - given that almost everyone is capable of developing some degree of athletic potential. Similarly, the right training and development program can help almost anyone cultivate some degree of leadership potential. In fact, it can help a few people develop extraordinary leadership abilities. Ignoring leadership development is foolish, but at many companies, short-term priorities eclipse the long-term thinking needed to develop a good leadership pipeline. This book's plain, sensible approach is simple without being simplistic. It is generally lucid and clear, and - somewhat to my surprise - it does not suffer from having five authors. If you are a leader or need to develop leaders for large corporations, this is a very useful volume.

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Summary: A must read guide for CEOs
Review: This is one of the most powerful and inspiring book on leadership. It must be a required reading for MBA students and senior executives.

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Summary: One of the best new business books recently released...
Review: Who doesn't want to know about leadership? It is a discipline that has been called an "art" by Max DePree and dissected by countless academics. Wharton School Publishing has created, in collaboration with Nightly Business Report (NBR) and Knowledge@Wharton, a perfect book for those of us who like to discover how leadership is done.

The book identifies the 25 most influential business leaders of the past 25 years-side note, I didn't make it. The NBR viewers nominated more than 700 business people from around the world-once again, I was skipped. A panel of six Wharton judges selected the top 25. Seriously, it is a great list. Iacocca, Welch, Branson, Buffett, Bezos, and Kelleher. The panel was asked to pick the "best" of the 25. Andy Grove won that honor. 2 of the 25 have died-Sam Walton and Mary Kay Ash-and they interviewed 15 of the remaining 23.

They have identified eight characteristics that have enabled the 25 individuals to overcome major challenges as well as create their own leadership style.

1. Building a strong corporate culture-Herb Kelleher. 2. Truth telling-Peter Drucker, Bill George 3. Finding and catering to under-server markets-John Bogle, Charles Schwab 4. Seeing the invisible-Steve Jobs, Ted Turner 5. Using price to build competitive advantage-Jeff Bezos 6. Managing and building their organizations brand-Oprah Winfrey, Lee Iacocca. 7. Being a fast learner-Lou Gerstner, Bill Gates. 8. Managing risk-Alan Greenspan, Peter Lynch.

The history and challenges of these 25 leaders are thoroughly covered with tidbits of information on side bars, which includes detailed information on birthdays, marriages, schooling and highlights in their respective careers. What's great about this is that you can pick and choose what you want to read and everything is in bite-sized morsels. The stories ends with what is titled "The Leadership Lesson" which gives further insight into how these 25 leaders got to be where they are. Their stories are told with many verbatim quotes, which really helps this book to be both interesting and motivating. This makes it a great holiday gift book for anybody in business.