The New Global Leaders: Richard Branson, Percy Barnevik, David Simon and the Remaking of International Business - Hardcover

What does it take to run a global company during this age of international competition, technology, and downsized work forces? In The New Global Leaders, Manfred F.R. Kets De Vries and Elizabeth Florent-Treacy provide some answers by examining the lives and work of three of Europe's most storied business leaders: Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group; Percy Barnevik, architect of the merger that created the ABB engineering conglomerate; and David Simon, who resurrected British Petroleum. The authors find that each of these leaders succeeds with charisma and a managing philosophy that centers on speed, openness, and a disdain for bureaucracy. "As organizations go through a global 'revolution,' they require the leadership of a significantly different kind of CEO," write the authors. "Leaders at the helm of the corporations of the future will need the capacity to step out of their own comfort zone and adapt to other realities."

While the book is a bit obsequious at times, it's easy to read and understand. Common among all three executives is their simple and direct style. Simon, for example, is a zealot about meeting benchmarks. His slogan is "Performance, reputation, and teamwork." The book shines because it's three biographies and three business histories in one. Managers at companies of any size can benefit from the experiences of Branson, Barnevik, and Simon. --Dan Ring

If there were an award for outstanding leadership in modern business and you had to pick the candidates, you would do well to include the three men profiled in this book. Each has captured the world's attention and respect by seeing their company through deep and discontinuous change while transforming it into a first-class, global organization. Along the way, they reinvented global business itself and became models for the successful leader of tomorrow.
Author Kets de Vries was granted unprecedented access to each of these business titans. And he clearly made the most of the opportunities. Here, Branson, Barnevik, and Simon share intimate accounts of how they've created and sustained innovation in their organizations while commanding the respect and loyalty of their employees across continents and cultures. For the first time, these pioneers relate their dreams and visions, their approaches to leadership, and their strategies for building and maintaining competitive global organizations staffed with dedicated, enthusiastic people.
Despite their distinctly different personal styles and philosophies, these three men exemplify the combined power of the charismatic and architectural roles of leaders. What they share, and what makes their stories so essential to the study of global leadership today, is their ability to spread their message with passion and conviction and to instill in their employees a greater sense of meaning and purpose in an era rife with cynicism.
But Kets de Vries and Florent-Treacy don't stop with interviews alone, fascinating as they are. The authors also focus their keen academic abilities on their subjects to offer an informed analysis of exactly what it is that's made these particular men so successful. With great insight and authority, The New Global Leaders carefully examines the question of what excellent leadership really is. The answer is one that every leader and all those concerned with international business will want to know.