Synopsis

Corporate America's leading consultant explains how top companies solve the problem of leadership succession

A serious crisis looms in American management today. More and more CEOs are failing; there remains an acute shortage of capable replacements. The true dilemma in leadership is the stagnant state of corporate leadership development. Because companies fail to hone their unit managers' leadership abilities, they are never able to fill their succession pipelines. With unit managers stagnating, companies have difficulty executing at every level, compounding the crisis. In this book, bestselling author Ram Charan shows how top companies approach leadership development as a core competency, recognizing that an adaptable leadership pool is a competitive advantage, and focusing their attention on bringing out the best in the leaders they have.

Charan reveals exactly what's wrong with corporate leadership development and tells how to make it right. He explains the concept of a leadership "gene pool" and shows how companies can discover just what "DNA" they need to succeed. He also details how to uncover the hidden leaders in a company, when and where to bring in fresh talent, how to coach, measure, and reward leadership, and much more. For CEOs, directors, and anyone involved in leadership development, Leaders at All Levels will be an eye-opening guide on how to get succession right.

Ram Charan (Dallas, TX) is coauthor (with Larry Bossidy) of the bestselling Execution (0-7126-2598-4) and a highly sought-after advisor to Fortune 500 companies such as GE, DuPont, Bank of America, and Colgate-Palmolive. He has taught at both the Harvard Business School andthe Kellogg School of Northwestern University. He is the author of The Leadership Pipeline (0-7879-5172-2).

Biography

Ram Charan is a world-renowned adviser to business leaders and corporate boards, a best-selling author, and an award-winning teacher. He is known for his keen insights into business problems and his real-world practicality in solving them.

Jack Welch has said he is "a huge admirer" of Ram’s and notes that Ram has a rare ability "to distill meaningful from meaningless" and is unusually adept at helping companies adopt best practices. He said Ram helped "stimulate his thinking" and that he "loved batting ideas around with Ram."

Fortune magazine said Ram is a "wise man," one of the "most influential consultants alive" and a leading expert in corporate governance. Business Week put him in the top five teachers in the United States for in-house executive development programs. The Economist referred to Ram as a veteran of CEO succession planning.

For nearly four decades, Ram has advised some of the world’s most successful business leaders on far-ranging issues, from corporate governance and CEO selection to changing corporate culture and pursuing organic growth. He has worked behind the scenes at companies such as GE, Verizon, Dupont, and Colgate.

Ram’s solutions are highly pragmatic, largely because of his field research approach: observing real-life actions and extracting what works.

Ram is also a prolific writer, having authored or coauthored fourteen books, including Know-How, What the CEO Wants You to Know, and Boards That Deliver. Execution, written with former Honeywell CEO Larry Bossidy, was on the New York Time’s bestseller list for nearly three years and has two million copiesin print. Ram has contributed to lead articles in Fortune, Harvard Business Review, and many other publications.

Ram’s interactive style and practicality have made him a favorite among executive educators. He has taught for thirty consecutive years at GE’s John F. Welch Leadership Center in Crotonville, New York, and has won best-teacher awards at Wharton and Northwestern.

Ram’s business career started when he was just a teenager, working in the family shoe shop in India. He went on to earn an engineering degree and then master’s of business administration and doctorate degrees from Harvard Business School. He graduated from Harvard with high distinction and was a Baker Scholar.

Ram is a director of Austin Industries, Tyco Electronics, and Emaar Manufacturing in India. He was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources in 2005. He is based in Dallas, Texas.