Available at: Amazon | B&N | Borders | 800 CEO READ

Why this book? Why is it relevant to the economy?


I’ll be honest with you. I’m not a big fan of business books. You may think that a statement like that is ironic coming from a person who has just authored one. However, you have to examine the reasons for my disenchantment for this genre – especially books on building leadership skills to get you to the top of an organization.

The primary reason is that most of these books are written by observers of business, not ones that lead organizations and carry the scars of failure on their road to success. Academics, journalists and consultants are bright but their opinion on leadership lack the credibility required to teach lessons to executives eager to make their mark in the corporate world. The publishing graveyard is littered with books on lessons of leadership being taught by people on the sidelines.

Now, there are credible books on leadership written by true leaders of successful organizations – Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca to name a couple. These books are insightful and have obviously been successful. However, my issue with this sub-genre is that the opinions stated in these books are primarily those of one person and therefore lack a holistic view of leadership skills.

Now, to answer the question in the title of this post – This book, although authored by me, brings you directly in touch with dozens of CEOs around the world. The lessons of leadership come to you directly from leaders of companies like Charles Schwab, Lenovo, JC Penney, PepsiCo, Infosys, Aetna, Cadbury-Schweppes, NCR, BT, Singapore Telecom to name a few. As stated by Penguin (the publisher) on the jacket of the book – “There have been many books by CEOs but never a book that pulled together so much great advice from so many top executives who found so many different ways to reach the top of the corporate world.”

As the economy falters, the corporate world will need great leaders to lift it out of this tailspin.
More than ever, these lessons of leadership will guide you to the top. There is No Elevator to The Top but these corporate captains will provide a roadmap to get there quickly.