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This chapter provides an overview of the key management conclusions that can be derived from this book. It presents the key directions which will be pursued further regarding management practices and strategies to measure and manage IO to improve business performance in the future.

This introductory chapter explains the reasons for writing a book about George Washington in relation to business leadership. It explains that though Washington was primarily a general and a politician, not a business leader, his accomplishments put him in a class that few other leaders in history can match. This book discusses the foundation of Washington's leadership principles and explores his success in organizing a revolution and securing liberty through a strong alliance.

This chapter discusses the general and business leadership principles that can be learned by understanding the life and career of General, and then later President, George Washington. It describes the importance of Washington’s development of self-discipline, strong character, courage, a desire to learn, and a bent for innovative ideas. It also highlights Washington’s development of organizational abilities and his persistence to continue the fight despite numerous setbacks and mistakes during the American Revolution.

This chapter discusses the tough beginning George Washington had in organizing a revolution and its relevance to business leadership. Though Washington was a loyal subject of the crown, he had doubts about new British laws such as the Stamp Act. He supported the 1765 Virginia House of Burgesses’ resolutions to the home country denouncing taxes and infringements on colonists’ rights. When all possible peaceful resolutions to the conflict were exhausted, Washington organized a revolution against the British colonial government.

This chapter examines the accomplishments of George Washington in setting the foundations of freedom as the first president of the US and looks at its relevance to business leadership. It describes Washington’s vision and how he sought to ensure a well-ordered government based on both laws and reason. To ensure a proper balance within the government Washington followed the Constitution carefully and used it as his compass and he avoided encroaching on the other branches of government aiming to exercise fully the rights of the executive branch so that it retained its full powers.

This chapter examines the fundamentals of George Washington’s succcess in the building of a winning team and its relevance to business leadership. It describes the challenges faced by Washington against efforts to seek his removal from Congress, which came to be known as the Conway Cabal. His major opponents included Generals Thomas Conway and Horatio Gates. Washington managed to overcome this challenge by gaining the support of other legislators and his wartime colleagues.

This chapter examines George Washington’s leadership as a statesman after the victory of the American forces at Yorktown and discusses its relevance to business leadership. After the Yorktown victory in late 1781, Congress became complacent and Washington had to deal with the army’s logistical problems and low morale. He also had to deal with discontent among the officer corps when Congresses appeared not ready to provide back pay owed to many of the officers and seemed to be wavering on a prior pledge of pensions for them.

This chapter examines George Washington’s struggle for survival during the American Revolution and its relevance to business leadership. It discusses how Washington seized opportunities and utilized his intelligence to cope with his defeat in battle. It describes how Washington recruited and encouraged existing soldiers to stay with him after a conflict emerged among American military leaders. He then reorganized the army from regiments to brigades and increased the amount of artillery.

This chapter examines how George Washington secured liberty for America against the British during the American Revolution and its relevance to business leadership. Washington showed that he could think and act under pressure by turning a near defeat into a solid performance in the battle at Monmouth. In working with France, Washington displayed different traits, acting diplomatically to manage the alliance between the two countries to keep it intact and ensure that it would eventually be victorious. The key to Washington’s success was his dynamic leadership in a high-stakes and time-constrained environment.

This chapter examines how George Washington preserved the promoted the cause of the American Revolution. It suggests that Washington’s victory at Trenton, New Jersey, not only had a material impact on the enemy, it also proved to be a major victory for propaganda. It explained that this victory raised the spirits of Washington’s army and patriots throughout the colonies and there was a newfound confidence in Washington’s leadership.

This chapter examines how George Washington developed a winning strategy against the British forces during the American Revolution and its relevance to business leadership. Washington developed his long-term strategy based on his successes in Trenton and Princeton, New Jersey, which he called the Fabian Strategy. This strategy involved the creation of independent commands which allowed the leaders of these detachments to carry the war to the British, attacking only the disperse units of the enemy to force them on the defensive.

The chapter focuses on how leadership was taught in the distant and recent past. The first section is on five of the greatest leadership teachers ever—Lao-tzu, Confucius, Plato, Plutarch, and Machiavelli—who shared a deep belief in the idea that leadership could be taught and left legacies that included timeless and transcendent literary masterworks. The second section explores how leadership went from being conceived of as a practice reserved only for a select few to one that could be exercised by the many. The ideas of the Enlightenment changed our conception of leadership. Since then, the leadership literature has urged people without power and authority, that is, followers, to understand that they too could be agents of change. The third section turns to leadership and management in business. It was precisely the twentieth-century failure of business schools to make management a profession that gave rise to the twenty-first-century leadership industry.

Among various determining factors, strong business leadership played a crucial role in Korea’s economic rise. This is perhaps best exemplified by the cases of Park Tae-jun, Lee Byung-chul, and Chung Ju-yung, the founders of POSCO, Samsung, and Hyundai, respectively. Each of the entrepreneurs faced tremendous disadvantages at the onset, but through excellent leadership and decision-making, they were able to grow their companies into the global brands they are today. The case studies provide meaningful lessons for businessmen and policymakers who wish to build competitive advantages in their fields despite their late entry in the market. Most important, these three leaders serve as good examples to prove the validity of the ABCD model by showing how a late starter without significant resources and capabilities can gain competitiveness among strong companies from advanced countries.

This book describes a depth-psychological approach to executive assessment based on psychoanalytic insights and how a psychological quality called “active coping” contributes to effective business leadership. Assuming a sustained motivation to lead others, it argues that it is the potential for “active coping” that is central to predicting effective leadership. Although traditional selection criteria based on past performance and achievements are indispensable, the book asserts that they do not adequately predict how a high-achieving person will handle new, unanticipated crises or, more generally, how anybody will perform in a new leadership role. The focus of depth-psychological analysis is on understanding the personality qualities of effective leaders, especially business executives, including their ability to act with consistently high integrity and to demonstrate sound, timely judgment when they occupy positions of power.

This chapter explores a place made famous in the immigration field by an energetic county sheriff who has cracked down on undocumented immigrants. However much this served his political career, this chapter argues, his actions also respond to the sentiments of a native majority made uneasy by the rapid growth of immigrant communities, a significant presence of unauthorized immigrants, and their overwhelmingly Mexican national origin. These conditions have enabled Sheriff Joe Arpaio, among others, to inflame the situation. At the same time, the chapter shows how the larger political response has been enabled by a long-standing metropolitan fragmentation and lack of regional business leadership.

This chapter is a study of Charlotte, North Carolina, whose case points both to the advantages and limits of business leadership. It argues that Charlotte has long had a business elite concerned about the city's role as a national financial center in the New South. Under their influence, Charlotte took a leadership role on school desegregation, downtown development, and regional economic strategies. This served to constrain anti-immigrant politics as Latino immigrant communities grew rapidly within the city and county. Nonetheless, the ground shifted as a former Charlotte mayor became an anti-immigrant governor, playing to a conservative Republican legislature, and some local anti-immigrant political figures picked up this lead. The example points to the lack of services in newer destinations, including suburbs, but also how elite opinion can constrain many conservative populist impulses.

This chapter argues that business has a fundamental role to play in addressing the current threats to shared prosperity and our planet and make sure capitalism actually helps provide what matters to people around the globe. To become such an agent for positive change, business first and foremost has to regain the trust of society through a renewed sense of purpose, a long-term orientation, and transparency. Drawing on the example of Unilever, the chapter exemplifies what single companies can achieve when moving beyond a shareholder-only focus, but ultimately highlights the need for collective action given the magnitude of the challenge.