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Leading by Example (Lessons Learned) (Lessons Learned)

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Here's something novel: a book on business leadership by real business leaders. This is no B-school case-study exercise. Here are the lived experiences of battle-hardened executives reporting from the trenches, in their own words, about their wins and losses, triumphs and disasters.

There are no charts, graphs or numbers in "Leading by Example". Just stories. Stories about how exceptional men and women deal with the challenges of running successful businesses and the lessons they've learnt in doing so. And how they use these hard-won lessons to shape their business philosophy and practice.

Like Sanjay Ahuja, chief executive of the Orange Group, who learnt, in the course of turning around a failing business which employees and customers thought was beyond rescue, that a business is not a democracy, that leaders must take decisions in the best interest of the company, not their popularity.

Or Amelia Fawcett, former Chief Operating Officer of Morgan Stanley International, who maintained her company's presence in the Russian natural gas services market when competitors were bailing out in the face of the financial meltdown in that country in the late 1990s. She believed that the company's strategic decision was correct. Events proved her right and taught her that a leader must have the courage of her conviction and stay the course, no matter how unpopular her decisions are.

Or Ken Freeman, MD of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, who tells the story of how his efforts to effect a turnaround at Quest Diagnostics were aided by a chance encounter with a junior employee at Orlando airport whilst he was on vacation with his family. A friendly, informal chat with the man and his family convinced the man that Freeman had the right leadership skills for the job and this quickly spread throughout the company. Leaders must pay attention to informal communication, says Freeman. It allows leadership skills--both good and bad--to show through.

"Leading by Example" contains many such lessons learnt from the real-life experiences of successful business men and women. It is one of three titles in the series, "Lessons Learned: Straight Talk from the World's Top Business Leaders", developed by Fifty Lessons ( www.fiftylessons.com) and published by Harvard Business School Press.