Who made it to the top of Corporate America in the twentieth century? And what do their experiences mean for the next generation of business leaders? In "Paths to Power", Anthony J. Mayo, Nitin Nohria, and Laura G. Singleton answer these questions. The authors explore access to business leadership opportunities - showing how a small group of "insiders" possess advantages that facilitate a smooth journey to the top while a larger group of "outsiders" face disadvantages that make their path to leadership positions more difficult.Yet throughout the history of American business, the composition of insiders and outsiders has shifted. Examining data on leader birthplaces, religious affiliation, education, socioeconomic status, race, and gender, "Paths to Power" explains how the demographics of leadership have changed over the 20th century and how they're changing now. Further, they discuss the mechanisms of advancement for insiders and outsiders, and show how these mechanisms have also evolved. Though white men still hold most power positions in business, the authors assert that the gates of access aren't as static as they seem.
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"... describes the backgrounds of...leaders - refreshingly, many are less well known figures - and how factors such as birthplace, gender, race, class, religion and education helped them to positions of power." -- Financial Times, December 20, 2006
"Paths to Power offers a useful way to think about how much economic mobility there really is in America and how it has evolved." -- The Washington Post, February 18, 2007
"Paths to Power offers a useful way to think about how much economic mobility there really is in America and how it has evolved." -- The Washington Post, February 18, 2007
From the Back Cover
“In the early decades of the twentieth century, an invisible sign hung on the office doors of major American CEOs: “Reserved for White Males.” In small type, it added, “Strong preference for right blood type, religion, region, and connections.” Fortunately, the small type has now been erased and the big type is fading. This masterful study of changing leadership patterns is destined to be a landmark.”
—David Gergen, Director, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and author, Eyewitness to Power
“Paths to Power is a major study, both penetrating and wide-ranging, of the forces that create effective leadership in the business world today. It is especially impressive in its analysis of the central roles of religion, race, and gender, and other factors in producing top leadership in the twentieth century.”
—James MacGregor Burns, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, Williams College
“Paths to Power makes fascinating reading for all who have been to the top, those who are aspiring to reach the top, and all MBA students who are about to begin their careers to reach the top.”
--Thomas Phillips, former Chairman and CEO, Raytheon Company
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I recently read In Their Time, co-authored by Anthony Mayo and Nitin Nohria, in combination with this book whose subtitle correctly indicates what Mayo, Nohria, and Laura Singleton set out to explain: how "insiders" and "outsiders" of big business (as Michael Useem explains in an insightful Foreword) presided "over our dominant organizations" and, in process, examine "which pathways lead to the apex - or which do not" for those who would also achieve such dominance.
Rather than limiting their attention to a set number of exemplary leaders - in chronological order -- and then devoting a separate chapter to each, taking a linear approach to the material, the co-authors chose to examine the evolution of 20th century business leadership in terms of the ten decades, assigning to each following the first chapter an appropriate component (birthplace, nationality, religion, education, class, gender and race, etc.) while frequently cross-referencing throughout the entire century. For example, they juxtapose comparable individuals such as James Stillman's presidency of National City Bank (1891-1909) and Sanford "Sandy" Weill's of Citigroup (that National City Bank eventually became) a century later.
Mayo, Nohria, and Singleton's role In Paths to Power is more that of cultural anthropologists than as biographers or even business historians. They create a social and economic context within a 100-year framework as they examine what separated outsiders from insiders in business leadership in the 20th century. In the city where I live, we have a number of outdoor markets at which slices of fresh fruit are offered as samples of the produce available. In that same spirit, I frequently include brief excerpts from a book to help those who red my review to get a "taste." Here is a representative selection from the material that Mayo, Nohria, and Singleton provide.
On birthplace: "As a starting point in our examination of twentieth-century leader backgrounds, we thus come away with the decisive conclusion that even in the United States, the great land of opportunity, not every birthplace was created equal...While mobility between regions tended to increase later in the century, people with more prosperous family origins - origins that typically stemmed from birth in a similarly prosperous region of the country -retained an advantage when entering business in a new area. The distinguishing features of each of the country's major regions, both as sources of and sites for leaders, will constitute an important backdrop for further discussions about leader characteristics." (Page 54)
On education: "Yale's popularity among business leaders like the Weyerhaeusers vaulted it to a preeminent position in the early part of the century: it was the most popular school for all of our leaders prior to 1950, educating thirty-two of them (about 15 percent of all that era's college graduates). With twenty-seven leaders, Harvard came next, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ranked a distant third with fourteen graduates. Yale was a perfect fit for the era of the dominant Protestant establishment, to which the Weyerhaeusers, steadfast Presbyterians, belonged. Yale was seen as a bastion of conservative, faith-oriented values during this period, in contrast to the more intellectual and individualistic attitudes at Harvard. (Page 124)
On class: "With nearly 30 percent of the leaders consistently coming from relatively poor backgrounds and, because of their success, passing on wealthy or at least quite comfortably middle-class upbringings to their own children, genuine upward mobility is undoubtedly represented by almost one in three of these leaders. Still, countermeasures such as the GI Bill and trends toward professional management, rather than improving the chances of those from poorer backgrounds, appear to have only held the line against an inexorable advantage of those with advantages." (Page 184)
In his Foreword, Useem explains this book's unique importance. "Studies of the social origins of America's business elite have been a long-standing research tradition, dating to such classics as W. Lloyd Warner and James Abe glen's Big Business Leaders in America and Mabel Newcomer's The Big Business Executive, both published in 1955. We have not had the benefit of a truly comprehensive portrait since those works of more than fifty years ago; now Mayo, Nohria, and Singleton have not only updated the picture but also produced the definitive portrait of our time."
Those who share my high regard for this brilliant book are urged to check out the aforementioned In Their Time as well as Stuart Crainer's The Management Century and Stewart H. Holbrook's The Age of the Moguls: The Story of the Robber Barons and the Great Tycoons. (Obtaining a copy of it is well worth the effort.) In it, Holbrook examines a number of "lords of capital" who, in his words, "made `deals' purchased immunity, and did other things which in 1860, or 1880, or even 1900, were considered no more than `smart' by their fellow Americans, but which today would give pause to the most conscientiously dishonest promoter.... They were a motley crew, yet taken together they fashioned a savage and gaudy age as distinctively purple as that of imperial Rome, and infinitely more entertaining." The group Holbrook considers is divided into three categories: promoters, bankers, and industrialists, with merchants in the latter group. They include Jim Fisk, Jay Gould, Charlie Gates, Thomas William Lawson, Henry H. Rogers, Henry Morrison Flagler, and Samuel Insull; Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Cyrus McCormick, Philip D. Armour, Henry Clay Frick, Henry Ford, and the Du Ponts; also the Guggenheims, Andrew W. Mellon, James J. Hill, Edward Henry Harriman, Henry Villard, the first two Vanderbilts, and the Astors. Some of these names remain familiar in our own time; others do not. All were "tough-minded fellows, who fought their way encased in rhinoceros hides and filled the air with their mad bellowings and the cries of the wounded." A colorful lot indeed.
Holbrook's account of 19th century robber barons and great tycoons "sets the table" for the "feast" of information and analysis that Anthony Mayo and Nitin Nohria with Laura Singleton so skillfully provide.
Rather than limiting their attention to a set number of exemplary leaders - in chronological order -- and then devoting a separate chapter to each, taking a linear approach to the material, the co-authors chose to examine the evolution of 20th century business leadership in terms of the ten decades, assigning to each following the first chapter an appropriate component (birthplace, nationality, religion, education, class, gender and race, etc.) while frequently cross-referencing throughout the entire century. For example, they juxtapose comparable individuals such as James Stillman's presidency of National City Bank (1891-1909) and Sanford "Sandy" Weill's of Citigroup (that National City Bank eventually became) a century later.
Mayo, Nohria, and Singleton's role In Paths to Power is more that of cultural anthropologists than as biographers or even business historians. They create a social and economic context within a 100-year framework as they examine what separated outsiders from insiders in business leadership in the 20th century. In the city where I live, we have a number of outdoor markets at which slices of fresh fruit are offered as samples of the produce available. In that same spirit, I frequently include brief excerpts from a book to help those who red my review to get a "taste." Here is a representative selection from the material that Mayo, Nohria, and Singleton provide.
On birthplace: "As a starting point in our examination of twentieth-century leader backgrounds, we thus come away with the decisive conclusion that even in the United States, the great land of opportunity, not every birthplace was created equal...While mobility between regions tended to increase later in the century, people with more prosperous family origins - origins that typically stemmed from birth in a similarly prosperous region of the country -retained an advantage when entering business in a new area. The distinguishing features of each of the country's major regions, both as sources of and sites for leaders, will constitute an important backdrop for further discussions about leader characteristics." (Page 54)
On education: "Yale's popularity among business leaders like the Weyerhaeusers vaulted it to a preeminent position in the early part of the century: it was the most popular school for all of our leaders prior to 1950, educating thirty-two of them (about 15 percent of all that era's college graduates). With twenty-seven leaders, Harvard came next, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ranked a distant third with fourteen graduates. Yale was a perfect fit for the era of the dominant Protestant establishment, to which the Weyerhaeusers, steadfast Presbyterians, belonged. Yale was seen as a bastion of conservative, faith-oriented values during this period, in contrast to the more intellectual and individualistic attitudes at Harvard. (Page 124)
On class: "With nearly 30 percent of the leaders consistently coming from relatively poor backgrounds and, because of their success, passing on wealthy or at least quite comfortably middle-class upbringings to their own children, genuine upward mobility is undoubtedly represented by almost one in three of these leaders. Still, countermeasures such as the GI Bill and trends toward professional management, rather than improving the chances of those from poorer backgrounds, appear to have only held the line against an inexorable advantage of those with advantages." (Page 184)
In his Foreword, Useem explains this book's unique importance. "Studies of the social origins of America's business elite have been a long-standing research tradition, dating to such classics as W. Lloyd Warner and James Abe glen's Big Business Leaders in America and Mabel Newcomer's The Big Business Executive, both published in 1955. We have not had the benefit of a truly comprehensive portrait since those works of more than fifty years ago; now Mayo, Nohria, and Singleton have not only updated the picture but also produced the definitive portrait of our time."
Those who share my high regard for this brilliant book are urged to check out the aforementioned In Their Time as well as Stuart Crainer's The Management Century and Stewart H. Holbrook's The Age of the Moguls: The Story of the Robber Barons and the Great Tycoons. (Obtaining a copy of it is well worth the effort.) In it, Holbrook examines a number of "lords of capital" who, in his words, "made `deals' purchased immunity, and did other things which in 1860, or 1880, or even 1900, were considered no more than `smart' by their fellow Americans, but which today would give pause to the most conscientiously dishonest promoter.... They were a motley crew, yet taken together they fashioned a savage and gaudy age as distinctively purple as that of imperial Rome, and infinitely more entertaining." The group Holbrook considers is divided into three categories: promoters, bankers, and industrialists, with merchants in the latter group. They include Jim Fisk, Jay Gould, Charlie Gates, Thomas William Lawson, Henry H. Rogers, Henry Morrison Flagler, and Samuel Insull; Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Cyrus McCormick, Philip D. Armour, Henry Clay Frick, Henry Ford, and the Du Ponts; also the Guggenheims, Andrew W. Mellon, James J. Hill, Edward Henry Harriman, Henry Villard, the first two Vanderbilts, and the Astors. Some of these names remain familiar in our own time; others do not. All were "tough-minded fellows, who fought their way encased in rhinoceros hides and filled the air with their mad bellowings and the cries of the wounded." A colorful lot indeed.
Holbrook's account of 19th century robber barons and great tycoons "sets the table" for the "feast" of information and analysis that Anthony Mayo and Nitin Nohria with Laura Singleton so skillfully provide.
By Jeff
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is a very good review of the events and actions that shaped some of the greatest business leaders. It discusses the roles of family, religion, ethnicity, education, etc. and how their importance has dramatically changed over the last century.
Format:Hardcover
This book is extremely valuable for young people who want to succeed in business. There are several essential social and economic contexts what separated outsiders from insiders in America's business leadership in the 20th century and are continuing shape business leadership in the 21st century. These are also social and economic backgrounds impacting business leadership internationally though in different degrees. Look for them in the book and you will benefit a lot from understanding them. This book is especially helpful in planning a top-notch career.
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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