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32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Humility Aside, Here's Food for Thought, September 25, 2003
This review is from: Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value (Hardcover)
Part memoir, part social commentary, part company case study, "Authentic Leadership" is Bill George's wide angle take on, and prescription for, the current state of corporate leadership. George, lauded former CEO of the medical technology company Medtronic (who tells us that he fantasized about becoming a big company CEO when he was a *teenager*), clearly has stepped back and reflected on what's wrong with modern corporate leadership. With ample examples from his own career, anecdotes from apparent elbow-rubbing with other top execs, along with a smattering of bits from contemporary business books and articles, Bill George serves up many thought-provoking perspectives worth reading and heeding, especially for top leaders of enterprises--and those who earnestly aspire to such rare roles. To his credit, George doesn't claim any breakthrough, cutting-edge management panaceas. The subtitle of the book discloses George's interest in solid if out of fashion ideas, proclaiming a focus on "Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value." And the book mostly makes good on that promise. Sample Bill George observations: --> "Many people in the business and academic communities believe that missions, values, visions, empowerment, and customer satisfaction represent the 'soft side' of business. They see expense reductions, layoffs, divestitures, creative financial management, and write-downs as the 'hard side.' In my career I have had to lay off thousands of workers, divest failing businesses, take major write-offs, and make large expense cuts. As painful as the consequences of actions like these are, the decision itself is usually obvious and the leader has but few options. On the other hand, meeting the demanding needs of your customers and motivating thousands of employees toward a common mission and values is much more difficult." --> "Competitors will eventually copy an innovative idea for a product or service, but an organization of highly motivated people is very hard to duplicate. The motivation will last if it is deeply rooted in employees' commitment to the intrinsic purpose of their work." --> "You cannot inspire employees by urging them to help management get the company's stock price up.... Typically employees respond with cynicism when they believe management is just using them to enhance its own wealth, not theirs." --> "Shooting Stars move up [through promotions] so rapidly they never take time to learn from their mistakes or look at themselves in the mirror. A year of two into any job, they are ready to move on, long before they have to pass the test of living with their decisions." --> "Many leaders--men in particular--fear having their weaknesses and vulnerabilities exposed. So they create distance from employees and a sense of aloofness. Instead of being authentic, they are creating a persona for themselves." --> "What appears to be a compromise of values in a single instance is usually the final act in a series of compromises." -->"Having wielded power, it is very difficult to yield it." These pithy quotables belie the book's uneven tone. One suspects that Mr. George wrote this collection of recollections and observations himself; laudable for its authenticity and notable for its inconsistent results. Many times "Authentic Leadership" has the flavor of a tightly constructed, passionate argument. Other times, the less-well-crafted prose (particularly in earlier chapters) comes across like a verbatim transcript of off-the-cuff, and somewhat tired, remarks that an old salt might offer a young protégé over a one-white wine lunch. ("If we sell our souls to the company, at the end of the day we may find we have little to show for our efforts.") Interestingly, equally prosaic is George's accounts of his personal life even when it's infused with the utmost potential pathos of literal life-and-death drama. Perhaps years of repressing the pain of personal tragedies so neutered their recall as to yield only bland recounting rather than inspired story-telling. Though George characterizes himself as humble (a few times), it may well be that humility cannot sit comfortably in the seat of power running a multi-billion dollar corporation. Throughout George's book (with the exception of an uncharacteristically wistful Epilogue), a reader gets what one assumes is an unintended glimpse into his CEO-ego. George often holds up his own record as exemplary and he almost always is the hero of his own stories, with but a few scant accounts of his blunders. His self-reporting on verbal exchanges with colleagues inevitably (albeit unintentionally) reveals George's decided penchant for having the last, definitive, word. Interestingly, when George finds himself disagreeing with his bosses those grand finale retorts are always only unspoken thoughts. On the other hand, George's voiced clinchers for trumping the opinions of his employees so clearly zing and sting that there's just no need to add "Ha! Take that!" (Another peek under the top executive scalp: George's example of his "connecting" with employees--using his CEO platform to broadcast emails to all his employees about the status of his wife's breast cancer, and then reading some sympathetic emails in return.) In critically assessing this work, we can forgive Mr. George his indulgences. His plentiful insights and instructive lessons--about everything from executive isolation from customers, to viewing shareholder interests as third behind customers and employees, to ethical standards around the globe, to corporate governance and succession planning--are certainly worth the effort of plowing past some personal aggrandizement and occasional first-draft quality prose. "Authentic Leadership" is a good book that likely would have been a great one with a little more humility, ardent editing and re-writing. Don Blohowiak, Lead Well® Institute
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Compelling Invitation, June 3, 2004
This review is from: Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value (Hardcover)
The day after I read this brilliant book, I read an article in the Dallas Morning News (Tuesday, September 30, 2003) in which sportswriter Gerry Fraley discusses the Minnesota Twins whose payroll is $110-million less than that of the Yankees. (The Twins won 90 games this past season and had just defeated the Yankees in the first game of the American league playoffs.) As Fraley notes, the Twins are renowned for how they treat their people. One of them is Al Newman who is currently struggling with a life-threatening illness. Here's a brief excerpt from Fraley's article: "When beloved third-base coach Al Newman was hospitalized in Chicago this month because of a brain hemorrhage, general manager Terry Ryan remained with him for the entire 11-day stay. While Newman was hospitalized, the Twins clinched the Central title at home. Manager Ron Gardenshire stopped the postgame celebration, brought out Newman's uniform top and reminded the crowd of what he had done for the club." If I understand George's key points in Authentic Leadership, both Ryan and Gardenshire offer examples of it. Specifically, they demonstrate "the highest integrity, [are] committed to building enduring organizations...who have a deep sense of purpose and are true to their core values...who have the courage to build their companies to meet the needs of all stakeholders, and who recognize the importance of their service to society." George addresses what he views as a need for new leadership when in fact the need is to increase the number of authentic leaders, not only in business but in government, religion, and the military. We need more men and women who "genuinely desire to serve others through their leadership...are more interested in empowering the people they lead to make a difference than they are in power, money, or prestige for themselves. They are as guided by qualities of the heart, by passion and compassion, as they are by qualities of the mind." George invites, indeed urges his reader to "rediscover the secrets of creating lasting value" in literally all areas of contemporary life. On page 6, he poses a series of questions and then in the 17 chapters and Epilogue which follow, he responds to each. However insightful those responses may be, and they are, I think the primary purpose of the questions is to guide and inform each reader's consideration of the various issues which those questions suggest. With all due respect to what George so generously shares from his own life and career, the nature and extent of the reader's own engagement in self-exploration will ultimately determine the value of this book. The material is exceptionally well-organized. The quality of writing is first-rate, and especially effective because of the conversational tone of George's observations and suggestions. Although there are frequent references in this book to "companies," the questions posed and the issues associated with them are also directly relevant to all other organizations (regardless of size or nature) in which there is a compelling need for authentic leaders. Daily, it seems, there is evidence of such need in news accounts of corruption in all areas of our society. Corporate executives are indicted and convicted of fraud. Officers in the military are demoted, discharged or, in some instances, imprisoned as are clergy in various denominations. Although the reasons for their behavior vary, all of them betrayed the trust of those to whom they were accountable and for whom they were responsible. Authentic leaders are first and foremost authentic human beings. For me, this is George's key point and because it seems so obvious, it may also seem simplistic. On the contrary, he has cut through all the rhetoric and urges his reader to examine her or his core values. For most of us, that is an immensely difficult, perhaps painful experience. In this context, I am reminded of the fact that in The Inferno, Dante reserved the last and worst ring in hell for those who, in a moral crisis, preserve their neutrality. Throughout all manner of organizations, there are women and men who are authentic leaders and should be commended. The reality is, their respective organizations need more of them. More to the point, all of us in our global community need more of them. In his unique and compelling book, George challenges us to join their number.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Compelling Invitation, October 3, 2003
This review is from: Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value (Hardcover)
The day after I read this brilliant book, I read an article in the Dallas Morning News (Tuesday, September 30, 2003) in which sportswriter Gerry Fraley discusses the Minnesota Twins whose payroll is $110-million less than that of the Yankees. (The Twins won 90 games this past season and had just defeated the Yankees in the first game of the American league playoffs.) As Fraley notes, the Twins are renowned for how they treat their people. One of them is Al Newman who is currently struggling with a life-threatening illness. Here's a brief excerpt from Fraley's article: "When beloved third-base coach Al Newman was hospitalized in Chicago this month because of a brain hemorrhage, general manager Terry Ryan remained with him for the entire 11-day stay. While Newman was hospitalized, the Twins clinched the Central title at home. Manager Ron Gardenshire stopped the postgame celebration, brought out Newman's uniform top and reminded the crowd of what he had done for the club." If I understand George's key points in Authentic Leadership, both Ryan and Gardenshire offer examples of it. Specifically, they demonstrate "the highest integrity, [are] committed to building enduring organizations...who have a deep sense of purpose and are true to their core values...who have the courage to build their companies to meet the needs of all stakeholders, and who recognize the importance of their service to society." George addresses what he views as a need for new leadership when in fact the need is to increase the number of authentic leaders, not only in business but in government, religion, and the military. We need more men and women who "genuinely desire to serve others through their leadership...are more interested in empowering the people they lead to make a difference than they are in power, money, or prestige for themselves. They are as guided by qualities of the heart, by passion and compassion, as they are by qualities of the mind." George invites, indeed urges his reader to "rediscover the secrets of creating lasting value" in literally all areas of contemporary life. On page 6, he poses a series of questions and then in the 17 chapters and Epilogue which follow, he responds to each. However insightful those responses may be, and they are, I think the primary purpose of the questions is to guide and inform each reader's consideration of the various issues which those questions suggest. With all due respect to what George so generously shares from his own life and career, the nature and extent of the reader's own engagement in self-exploration will ultimately determine the value of this book. The material is exceptionally well-organized. The quality of writing is first-rate, and especially effective because of the conversational tone of George's observations and suggestions. Although there are frequent references in this book to "companies," the questions posed and the issues associated with them are also directly relevant to all other organizations (regardless of size or nature) in which there is a compelling need for authentic leaders. Daily, it seems, there is evidence of such need in news accounts of corruption in all areas of our society. Corporate executives are indicted and convicted of fraud. Officers in the military are demoted, discharged or, in some instances, imprisoned as are clergy in various denominations. Although the reasons for their behavior vary, all of them betrayed the trust of those to whom they were accountable and for whom they were responsible. Authentic leaders are first and foremost authentic human beings. For me, this is George's key point and because it seems so obvious, it may also seem simplistic. On the contrary, he has cut through all the rhetoric and urges his reader to examine her or his core values. For most of us, that is an immensely difficult, perhaps painful experience. In this context, I am reminded of the fact that in The Inferno, Dante reserved the last and worst ring in hell for those who, in a moral crisis, preserve their neutrality. Throughout all manner of organizations, there are women and men who are authentic leaders and should be commended. The reality is, their respective organizations need more of them. More to the point, all of us in our global community need more of them. In his unique and compelling book, George challenges us to join their number.
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