ABSTRACT
In each of the four sections on the ‘fruits’ of management, I will be aiming to help you identify and develop your individual, managerial potential over the course of your lifespan. In the process I shall be exposing you to eight prominent real-life managers, as role models from all around the globe, who have developed their personal and managerial individualities. These are Microsoft’s Bill Gates (entrepreneur) from the US and Semco’s Ricardo Semler (animateur) from Brazil in this chapter; Trumpf’s Dr Liebinger (executive) from Germany and F International’s Mrs ‘Steve’ Shirley (change agent) from the UK (chapter 12); the Centre for Leadership’s Joseph Jaworski (enabler), again from the US and Honda’s Fujisawa (adopter) from Japan (chapter 16); Virgin’s Richard Branson (adventurer), again from the UK, and Quantum Fund’s George Soros (innovater) from Hungary (chapter 20). At the same time, in focusing on you, as an individual manager, I am exhibiting cultural bias towards the north and west. I therefore owe some of you in the south and east an apology, though the fact that this book is written in English already makes such bias inevitable. Before I embark on this individual orientation, however, let me emphasize that your managerial style and orientation will be influenced by four major factors, as can be seen in Figure 8.1, other than your own individuality.
