Today's heads of big companies are as recognizable to us as the most popular entertainers or sports stars, but the heart and soul of every organization are those leaders below the CEO. Today's celebrity CEO has become either a figurehead or an egomaniac, and often too public a personality to get the real work done. That work is done instead by teams of leaders-exceptional deputies who forge great partnerships to maximize both organizational and personal success.
Heenan and Bennis believe we must look beyond the Bill Gateses of the world to understand what makes an organization excel. Written for CEOs, managers, and anyone else interested in modern organizations, this is the first comprehensive study of co-leaders and their often quiet power. Exhaustively researched and illustrated with memorable anecdotes and lively stories, Co-Leaders examines a dozen great partners such as Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, Bob Lutz of Chrysler, Bill Guthridge, coach of the University of North Carolina basketball team, and Anne Sullivan Macy, Helen Keller's teacher.
The changing nature of corporate leadership has seen the emergence of a new Silicon Valley model of success, where boss and subordinate seem more like peers, with the spotlight on great partnerships. Talent, not title, is the source of power at a growing number of hot high-tech companies.
In what could have been titled "Great Second Bananas of Our Time," the authors tell how the success of many superstar leaders was helped by their supportive, low-visibility partners. Using examples from the worlds of business, government, and sports, these two leadership gurus and business professors tell seamless stories of people who, though second in command, had enormous power within their spheres of influence. Some were actually more powerful than their more visible partners, like Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, or more comfortable in the second chair, like University of North Carolina Assistant Basketball Coach Bill Guthridge. The stories have historical and instructional significance that will hold the listener's attention in spite of a rather mechanical reading. T.W. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine
