21 Leaders for the 21st Century

In 21 Leaders for the 21st Century, they tap into the wisdom of high-performing leaders from around the globe — from Michael Dell to Richard Branson — who candidly discuss their own views and experiences in analyzing and solving business dilemmas.

More than just a prescriptive list of leadership skills, this invaluable guide uses case studies, examples, charts, tables, and graphs to show today's business leaders how to :

• Understand — and act upon—the 7 major dilemmas of leadership
• Identify major business dilemmas in the transnational community
• Implement strategies for sustaining emerging entrepreneurship

A Leadership Beliefs of Michael Dell, Richard Branson, Edgar Bronfman, and Other Global Innovators

21 Top Business Leaders Share Their Visions—and Explain Their Strategies—for Successful Leadership in the New Economy

Leadership is more than just a skill or technique. It is a style, a mindset. Exceptional leadership provides the capacity to reconcile contrasting players and objectives and turn them into a single, powerful system—with the ability to function cooperatively and learn from its own activities.

21 Leaders for the 21st Century goes beyond rote skill sets and systems to examine how 21 of today's most accomplished global leaders have confronted—and overcome—major dilemmas in building their businesses and guiding their careers. Leading international management consultants and authors Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner join with a cross section of today's most respected experts of business and academia to analyze the successes of leaders including:

• Michael Dell—Dell Computers
• Richard Branson—Virgin
• Karel Vursteen—Heineken
• Hugo Levecke—ABN AMRO
• Mark Moody-Stuart—Royal Dutch Shell
• Stan Shih—Acer Computers
• Jim Morgan—Applied Materials

To understand effective leadership, you must first understand the behaviors of effective leadership. 21 Leaders for the 21st Century is the first book to examine cutting-edge leadership attitudes—by focusing on today's most visionary leaders—and outline a dramatic and innovative leadership process for succeeding in the new economy.

Michael Dell has a head start on leadership in the 21st century. Dell has discovered that leadership is much more than just what you do; it is who you are, and how you manage major business dilemmas in an increasingly diverse marketplace.

In the seminal 21 Leaders for the 21st Century, authors Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner—in collaboration with their colleagues at THT Intercultural Management Consulting—propose and validate that the essence of leadership is in the resolution of universal dilemmas. Using the personal experiences of a remarkable and diverse group of world-class leaders, this pioneering guide provides a global roadmap for observing, evaluating, and learning from successful leadership behaviors in action.

"You should never go into an industry just with the purpose of making money. One has to passionately believe it is possible to change the industry, to turn it on its head, to make sure it will never be the same again. With the right people and with that conviction, anything is possible... Of course, this is not pure altruism ­ there's a profit to be made too."
—Richard Branson, Founder and CEO, Virgin

Interviews and case studies paint a stunning portrait of effective, intuitive, 21^st-century leadership:

• Edgar Bronfman forces Seagram to confront the "new sobriety"—simultaneously transforming its values and reengineering its processes
• David Komansky of Merrill Lynch successfully confronts competitors that are unbundling his firm's cash cow investment services and offering them at dramatically lower rates
• Anders Knutsen rescues Bang & Olufsen by combining its renowned tradition of immaculate audio design and engineering with modern efficiencies and production technologies

Central to effective leadership is the act of shouldering—and resolving—numerous conflicting dilemmas. 21 Leaders for the 21st Century shows how a select group of today's most accomplished leaders has succeeded at resolving distinct and dissimilar dilemmas while, at the same time, integrating the disparate solutions into a viable whole. The result is a wholly new—and newly energizing—treatment that redefines the roles of corporate leadership for the next generation of global leaders.

Contents

• Preface
• Introduction to the Metatheory of Leadership 1
• 1 Transcultural Competence: Learning to Lead by Through-Through Thinking and Acting, Part I 11
• 2 Transcultural Competence: Learning to Lead by Through-Through Thinking and Acting, Part II 39
• 3 New Vision of Capitalism: Richard Branson, Virgin 67
• 4 Creating a Hyperculture: Martin Gillo, Advanced Micro Devices 89
• 5 Recipe for a Turnaround: Philippe Bourguignon, Club Med 107
• 6 Recapturing the True Mission: Christian Majgaard, Lego 125
• 7 The Balance between Market and Product: Anders Knutsen, Bang and Olufsen 141
• 8 Private Enterprise, Public Service: Gerard Mestrallet, Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux 153
• 9 Leading One Life: Val Gooding's, British United Provident Association (BUPA) 173
• 10 Pioneering the New Organization: Jim Morgan, Applied Materials 193
• 11 The Internet as an Environment for Business Ecosystems: Michael Dell, Dell Computers 215
• 12 Global Brand, Local Touch: Stan Shih, Acer Computers 233
• 13 Weathering the Storm: Sergei Kiriyenko, former Russian Prime Minister 253
• 14 Toward a New Spirit: Edgar Bronfman, Seagram's 271
• 15 Change within Continuity: Karel Vuursteen, Heineken 293
• 16 The Challenge of Renewal: Hugo Levecke, ABN AMRO 305
• 17 Keeping Close to the Customer: David Komansky, Merrill Lynch 315
• 18 Managing the Internationalization Process: Kees Storm, AEGON 331
• 19 A Corporate Dynasty: Rashmi M. Koc, Koc Group 341
• 20 Leading through Transformation: Mark Moody-Stuart, Royal Dutch Shell 355
• 21 Keeping the Family in Business or Keeping the Business in the Family: Stuart Beckwith, Tim Morris, and Gordon Billage 373
• 22 Transcultural Competence through 21 Reconciliations 397
• Afterword: "Things Come Apart ..." 433
• App. A Accumulating and Assessing the Evidence 435
• App. B About Trompenaars Hampden-Turner (THT) Intercultural Management Consulting 450
• App. C: Short Biographies of the Contributors 453
• References 457
• Index