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  • 2022
  • Book

Leadership to Last: How Great Leaders Leave Legacies Behind

By: Geoffrey Jones and Tarun Khanna
  • Format:Print
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Abstract

Society tends to glorify the get-rich-quick entrepreneur who builds a company, takes it public and then (maybe) contributes to charity. In Leadership to Last, Geoffrey Jones and Tarun Khanna discuss the interviews they and other Harvard faculty have undertaken with iconic leaders in India who have demonstrated leadership to last. There are leaders from South Asia and other emerging markets as well to illustrate that the ideas Indian entrepreneurs speak about are echoed by their counterparts in the Global South. All these magnates—Ratan Tata, Anu Aga, Adi Godrej, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Devi Shetty and Rahul Bajaj, to name a few—have built, to general acclaim and acknowledgement, organizations that are seen as forward-looking and innovative. They subscribe to a code of ethics and contribute to the betterment of society. The authors demonstrate that this is a lot harder to achieve than unicorn status.
The authors show how these stories are less about building a get-rich-quick organization and much more about triggering foundational and institutional change in society. These interviews, encapsulating the history of recent decades, eloquently lay out the opportunities and challenges of today and the future. The profiled leaders inspire awe by displaying audacity of intent, humility of demeanour and steadfastness of purpose.

Keywords

Innovation; Corruption; Gender; Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Society; India; Pakistan; Bangladesh; Middle East; Africa; Latin America; Philippines

Citation

Jones, Geoffrey, and Tarun Khanna. Leadership to Last: How Great Leaders Leave Legacies Behind. Gurgaon, India: Penguin Random House India, 2022.
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About The Authors

Geoffrey G. Jones

General Management
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Tarun Khanna

Strategy
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More from the Authors
  • Vicky Tsai and Tatcha: Confronting Stereotypes By: Geoffrey Jones and Mona Rahmani
  • Firm-Induced Migration Paths and Strategic Human-Capital Outcomes By: Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna and Victoria Sevcenko
  • Your Company Needs a Space Strategy. Now. By: Matthew Weinzierl, Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Alan MacCormack and Brendan Rosseau
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