Ultimate Leadership (PDF)

To succeed, leaders must understand and apply the core principles of leadership—but that's not enough. You need to shape your approach for any unique situation. Too many leaders don't know how to do that—and that's why they fail. Ultimate Leadership shows how to adapt the principles of leadership to different challenges, contexts, and organizations.


Russell E. Palmer—who has had three very different, highly successful careers as head of one of the world's largest accounting firms, Dean of the Wharton School, and an entrepreneur—helps you identify the leadership model most appropriate for your environment, and how to lead accordingly. You'll learn better ways to lead your equals, help an organization weather crises, transform its culture, lead entrepreneurial organizations, lead global organizations...even lead non-profit and academic institutions.


Then, drawing on interviews with an extraordinary spectrum of outstanding leaders, Palmer helps you master the attribute every leader must have: the ability to inspire your unique organization, even in the face of the most daunting challenges.


• Achieving empowerment, even in classic "top-down" organizations
Exercising strong authority without falling victim to ego or closed-mindedness

• Transforming an organization of peers
Driving changes in a strategic direction when key power centers disagree

• Turning danger into opportunity
Mastering the art of rapid, focused, hands-on execution for organizations in crisis

• Leading cultural change that sticks
Reconnecting structures, processes, and strategies with the new realities you face

• Learning from the Wharton experience
Succeeding in an environment with widely diverse, highly influential stakeholders