Customer Reviews

Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership (NelsonFree)

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(56)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a pastor, I appreciate reading good books on developing and maintaining healthy leadership. I believe such books help me in the important task of leading my congregation on a relational human level while doing my main work of shepherding them in Christ on a spiritual level. "Derailed" has found a spot on my shelf of valuable leadership books.

In "Derailed" Tim Irwin has brought a compelling format to a well-known topic. There is no doubt that leadership books are full of exhortations to character as being the bedrock of leadership, but Tim's format of first profiling six highly visible leadership failures brings a new, gritty twist to the subject. The profiles served as a fun-house mirror, enabling me to see my own failures magnified to a grotesque level. The stories allowed me to see exactly how such failures cause a leadership derailment even before I got to the main content of the book. As such, Tim's profiling in the first half of the book serves the second half (where he blends information with personal application) exceptionally well.

But without a doubt, it's the second half of the book where this book earned its spot on my shelf. Tim's understanding of the dimensions of character (authenticity, self-management, humility, and courage) bring what is normally a vague, ethereal quality down into measurable, quantifiable bedrock that a leader can actually stand on. And then, when he finishes up the book with simple instructions on developing specific "heart habits" in order to avoid leadership derailing, he puts that all-important factor of personal application to good and practical use.

All in all, Tim Irwin has a solid and readable leadership book in "Derailed". I recommend it.

Prepare for a gut-check! Dr. Irwin's new book, De-Railed, will most certainly getting you thinking about how your actions and attitudes could be de-railing your own career. I love the way he uses real world examples of brilliant leaders who let their character flaws trump their competence. Whether or not we make it to the top chair in the company, we need to assess our character and make sure we stay on track. Please, please, please read this book!!!

What can you learn from former CEOs such as the leader of Home Depot, the maverick of HP, or Westin Hotels' golden boy? Plenty!

In Tim Irwin's book, Derailed, he approaches leadership lessons in a refreshing way. His book starts out with 6 profiles of leaders who were derailed in their leadership of high profile companies. Then he goes on to point out ways that we can avoid derailment in our personal and leadership lives.

Here's what I liked about the book:

* I liked hearing the stories of leaders who were at the top of their game and learning from the mistakes they made at the top.
* This is good for those who lead churches as well. I feel like this book is much more honest with the flaws that caused these leaders to fall. Too often leadership books don't point out the honest flaws of church leaders and how they can improve them. I found myself realizing mistakes I had made in the past and asking Jesus to forgive me and help me to be a leader more like Him.
* His habits of the heart to stay on track are definitely applicable to my life.
* This is the first NelsonFree book that I have seen. When you buy the book, you automatically get the PDF version for your computer, and the audio version. All 3 formats for the price of one! So cool.

I recommend this book to those looking for leadership fine tuning, and keeping their heart and character wholly true.

Derailed by Tim Irwin is a step out of the box. Six highly successful CEOs are examined for the causation of their failure in the high profile positions they each held but lost. These causations generate a list of five stages of de-railment. These stages lead to what it takes to stay on track. Finally, five critical lessons are revealed to help us manage our character and keep us on track for enduring success.

When I first started reading this book, I was concerned with what appeared to be disrespect given to 6 extremely successful multi-billion dollar corporate CEOs. The concerns were unfounded as the book progressed onto the meat of its principles. This book fits nicely into one of my basic life truths, You are where you are today because of choices you have made, as great or crappy as they may have been. Your character can make or break you as you lead. Character flaws can make even the most successful leaders fall hard. What you choose to do when both of the only two options will cause harm to someone else is who you are at the core. Your arrogance, self awareness, and choice to continue to grow and learn are the keys to determining your ultimate path. It is guided by who you really are when backed into a corner and your true character must shine out. Do you know who you are?

I recommend this book to anyone that seeks continuous personal improvement.

Mike W.

This had a slightly different feel from many of the "business theory" books I've read. Rather than write a book outlining all the ways great leaders become great (which for many of us, feels un-attainable), he instead focused in on the few things that they did wrong, which caused their companies and personal lives to "de-rail". As a reader, this was refreshing.

The book is easy to read, if you like to read these kind of books. The main point of the book is one that reaches across the "great divide" of the professional world and the homemaker world. The point is, that a failure in character trumps any effectiveness or competence you have in skills and organization.

It spoke to me both as a mother and as a part time director in a small non-profit organization. If I do not have character traits such as humility, honesty, self-awareness, consistency, or the ability to stay cool under pressure, I will not be an effective leader at home or at work. The book reminded me that great leaders have the same weaknesses as the rest of us, that most of the time it comes down to strength of character.

This book is well written. It starts by presenting the story of different people once they started as CEOs of big companies. What these people have in common is that they had failures in leadership which led to their dismissal from the companies. The point of the book is to take these stories and learn some valuable lessons from them. These lessons include humility, self-management, authenticity, etc. You do not have to be a CEO to benefit from the book. They apply to everyone and they can help improve your relationships with other people. Overall, great book and easy to read.

There's an element of Schadenfreude in reading the tales of
the downfall of obscenely wealthy CEOs who, due to character
deficiencies, were fired from jobs that could have made some
of them billionaires.

The thesis of this book is that these super-competent CEOs
all suffered from tragic flaws of character like arrogance
or unwillingness to hear criticism.

The first part of the book relates stories of these execs,
earning perhaps from $10 mil to $50 mil per year in their jobs,
who, due to hubris of some kind, were forced out or fired.
One exec even improved the company bottom-line but created
a culture of fear while doing it, which squelched creative
thought because everybody was afraid of being fired on the
guy's watch.

Put yourself in a super-execs shoes and you'd probably start
thinking you were some kind of uber-person too... all you'd
do is look at your net worth and it would be easy to believe
you're smarter than everybody around you because you make
a lot more money.

The truly great CEOs apparently have managed to be down-to-earth
and observant, caring about other people, and generally willing
to mix with the common people, despite the compensation packages
they were earning.

The rest of the book is a sort of personal development thing
that reminds me of Stephen Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People". It's not the same book, it just had the
same sort of point-of-view that the higher you get on the totem
pole the more important it is to be authentic with other people
so you can have clarity about what's really going on. In terms
of management, it means being approachable and willing to
delegate, listen to new ideas, accept criticism, and other
assaults to the ego.

By the end of the book I found I enjoyed it... If you're in
management (I'm a freelancer so I manage myself) you'll probably
get some real insight from it.

This book was a very easy, quick read. I thought there would be a bit more discussion about the six profiled CEOs, etc., who fell out of power, but Irwin gave only a short overview of each. His five lessons are also pretty straightforward and relatively simplistic (in theory, not practice). He talks a lot about the importance of character, courage, and humility; of not being prideful; of knowing yourself; and of "reading" the spoken and unspoken cues of the people around you. All good advice, but nothing earth-shattering. Overall, I was happy with this book, and even though I would have liked to have known more about the profiled leaders, I enjoyed reading what Irwin did include about them.

Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership. Tim Irwin Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 2009. Hardcover. 240 pages. ISBN 159555274X. $24.99.

This book tells the story of how six previously successful CEOs failed their high profile companies, in other words, got "derailed". According to the author, Derailment, has its origin in character flaws, and the prescription to cure these is self-awareness, taking responsibility, and, above all, humility.

The six CEOs are: Robert Nardelli (Home Deport), Carly Fiorina (HP), Durk Jager (P&G), Steven Heyer (Starwood), Fran Raines (Fannie Mae) and Dick Fuld (Lehman Brothers).

Robert Nardelli dictatorially micromanaged Home Depot to the extent that executive turnover reached 98 percent. Nardelli failed to respond this signal that something might be awry with his management style. At Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina created a culture of criticism and blame. The only person who could not be criticized was Fiorina herself -- despite the fact that her management of a merger with Compaq failed to produce the promised results. She was replaced after she started browbeating her own board.

Durk Jager tore into Procter and Gamble with the aggression of one who believes he is always right -- except that he wasn't always right. Steven Heyer resigned as Starwood Hotels CEO rather than face an inquiry into naughty emails he was alleged to have sent to a female employee.

Frank Raines, CEO at Fannie Mae, failed to take responsibility for the accounting irregularities at Fannie Mae under his leadership thus destroying an entire industry. Dick Fuld fought his way to the top of Lehman Brothers, which promptly collapsed.

A website that accompanies this book offers to assess your personal risk of becoming one of the fallen mighty.

I received this book from the Thomas Nelson's Book Review Blogger program at: [...].

I'd highly recommend this book. It's filled with practical insight that will greatly benefit anyone who is in a position of influence and leadership (which is just about any of us to some degree or another, regardless of our job or title). I think Dr. Irwin has done a masterful job of not only teaching by exampling several leaders who failed and the characteristics they all exhibited but also in offering up equipping lessons that will help us avoid their same fate. For me, the true test of a good book is how much I underline, highlight or make notes in the margins within the pages. As I looked back through my copy of Derailed, I realized that I underlined and highlighted something on almost every page! This will definitely be one of those books I keep close by to refer back to often.