A leadership book we’d actually recommendPublished by the Fitzgerald Power team.Books about business often lay in murky waters. Not quite self-help, often teetering into self-indulgent memoirs, you rarely get what you see on the tin. However, few books hit the mark beautifully, and The Ride Of A Lifetime does just that. But don’t let us convince you, the FP team is on the case.We’re all long-time Disney fans, and always keen on learning from the greats. In a book, we value insight, truth and colour, and we recommend our first team book pick, The Ride of A Lifetime by former Disney CEO Robert Iger.The book is divided into two parts; the first one is called “Learning”, where Iger describes the early stages of his career and the years leading up to his appointment as CEO of The Walt Disney Company, and the second part, “Leading”, where Iger shares the “ride” that he was on during his 15 years leading the company. He speaks frankly about the challenges, decisions and strategy he navigated and the lessons he continued to learn throughout, especially when the future was uncertain.Here’s what we thought of it:“The Ride Of A Lifetime shares the inspirational story of Robert Iger, detailing how his vision, strategy, and leadership guided the company through difficult times. We took a lot from it, but what struck us the most were Iger’s resolute commitment to leadership and how the ten principles for true leadership will rarely lead you astray. If it can work for the Disney CEO…“Ten principles for true leadership:1) Optimism – People aren’t motivated by pessimists.2) Courage – The foundation of risk is courage and risk-taking is crucial. Fear of failure kills creativity.3) Focus – Direct focus on the tasks and strategies that are of most value is crucial to growth.4) Decisiveness – The ability to make decisions in a timely way, encourage diversity of opinion but also bear in mind balancing this with the ability to make decisions.5) Curiosity – A deep and abiding curiosity that enables the discovery of new people and ideas.6) Fairness – Strong leadership embodies the fair and equal treatment of people and empathy and accessibility are essential. There is nothing worse than a culture of fear in an organisation.7) Thoughtfulness – Take the time to develop informed opinions.8) Authenticity – Be genuine, be authentic, be honest. Don’t fake anything.9) The relentless pursuit of perfection – Perfection is not always needed or accessible but don’t accept mediocrity. Don’t be in the business of making things, be in the business of making things great.10) Integrity – Nothing is more important than the integrity of an organisation’s people and its products. A high ethical standard for all things is important. It’s true what they say; the way you do anything is the way you do everything.”Strong leadership is critical to developing the capability to grow and transform your business. Leadership support and development will drive not just improved results, but better workforce performance and engagement, leading to long-term sustainable growth. Our team believes investment in leadership should be led with a human-centric approach developing leaders with emotional intelligence and a growth mindset who can lead with purpose and shared values. To find out more about how our team can help you with what’s next for your business, please get in touch. We’d be delighted to hear from you.Financial advisor to the Irish community pharmacy sector, food & beverage, SME and retail.We at Fitzgerald Power have spent thirty years offering creative solutions to a diverse range of clients across Ireland, the UK and Europe, and we’re pretty proud of what we’ve helped our clients to achieve. We enable and empower businesses to reach any and every goal. Whatever the job, we don’t offer anything less than the best. We work across a range of sectors, including pharmacy, food & beverage, SME and retail. Please get in touch today if you would like to speak to any of our experts.Further Articles Is it easy to change accountantsAt some stage in their business lifecycle, a retailer might decide to change accountant.… Read Blog How Irish retailers are doing globally – and how you can up your gameEven before COVID-19, it was becoming increasingly clear that physical shop-based retailing was struggling… Read Blog
