Leadership Profiles

Don’t let the big boys shoot you down

June 14, 2012
Don’t let the big boys shoot down an idea just because it’s new and weird. Another word for “new weirdness” is innovation. Consider Will Wright, the first leader of modern game design. Big companies couldn’t see the point of his game in which nobody “wins,” so Wright joined with two partners and self-published SimCity in 1989. Within a year, the game was a monster hit.

Trudy Ederle went beyond world records

June 7, 2012

U.S. Olympic swimmer Trudy Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel, in 1926—and, briefly, the most famous woman in the world—for three reasons:

How we think about strategy

May 29, 2012
To make the topic of strategy more personal, Cynthia Montgomery, Timken Professor of Business Administration and immediate past head of the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School, asks leaders to answer this question: Does your company matter? And also, what is your company adding to what already exists in the market?

How grit and firepower won at Verdun

May 24, 2012
French commander Philippe Pétain’s actions at the Battle of Verdun show it’s not just brains but guts that make a leader. For much of the late 1800s, military fashion had it that élan and the bayonet would win wars. Pétain found that notion ridiculous. He said firepower was the key to modern warfare. It didn’t take long for his doctrine to prove right.

IKEA’s story: leading by design

May 17, 2012

When Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA in 1943, he didn’t sell furniture. He sold a variety of goods, including wallets and jewelry. Yet, IKEA became a worldwide success at selling simple, inexpensive assemble-it-yourself furniture through a series of shrewd distribution and positioning moves on Kamprad’s part.

Leadership on the high seas

May 10, 2012
On the Maersk Alabama, the captain’s cool head, long experience and clear sense of duty saved the ship from pirates off Africa’s east coast. To understand why it did end so well for Captain Richard Phillips and his crew, you have to go back to his days as a seaman learning by example that deeds count, not words.

Look beyond your ‘kitchen cabinet’

May 4, 2012
Bob Frisch, author of  Who’s In the Room?, says decisions are typically made by the boss consulting with a small group of people—what he calls the “kitchen cabinet.” And everyone knows that when the boss makes big decisions, he turns to this close group.  Here’s what’s wrong with that…

Larry King, dreaming big

April 27, 2012

The Navy classified Larry Zeiger 4-F because of his bad eyes. His friends had all joined the service, so he was left behind, wandering aimlessly. The young man wanted to go into broadcasting. Zeiger finally landed a job as a radio disc jockey and a new name five minutes before the show: Larry King.

A man of merit: John Adams

April 20, 2012
John Adams was a founding father and second president of the United States, but perhaps his greatest acts of leadership were in recommending George Washington to be president, and John Marshall a justice of the Supreme Court.

Robert McNamara’s blind spot

April 13, 2012

Nobody argues the fact that Robert McNamara was a genius. The Ford Motor Co. whiz kid who led the Pentagon into the Vietnam War, and the World Bank into unprecedented expansion, solved problems with sheer brains. But McNamara’s flaw may have been that, in a larger sense, he just didn’t “get it.”