Financial Times Series

Leading in Turbulent Times

by Kevin Kelly and Gary E. Hayes

Published 4 December 2009

Turbulent times are here to stay. The global recession is today’s current headline, but accelerating change and economic uncertainty are the hallmarks of twenty-first century business. Signs like the volatility of commodity prices and fluctuations in currencies are all part of a broader weather system affecting business everywhere. These powerful forces for change are the corporate equivalent of headwinds, which must be faced and navigated by all leaders and those they lead. The challenge of the next few years is learning to maneuver confidentially in perpetual turbulence.

So what should you do as a leader to keep your business on course? Kevin Kelly and Gary Hayes have interviewed frontline leaders with proven track records for adapting to rapid change and helping their companies thrive. In Leading in Turbulent Times, these extraordinary executives—from successful international companies such as McDonald’s, General Electric, Nissan, Coca-Cola, Kaiser Permanente, Marks & Spencer, and more—share how they have confronted the challenges every leader must now face.

You’ll discover how to recognize the early signs of rough seas ahead and mobilize and inspire your people to respond. Kelly and Hayes explain what top leaders do to chart new strategies that build on existing strengths and, when necessary, change direction quickly and decisively. But a different course is not always welcomed by everyone, so Leading in Turbulent Times offers advice on putting down mutinies in ways that acknowledge legitimate concerns without distracting or alienating loyal crewmembers. And the authors focus on how to cope with the personal stress that comes with guiding your organization and your people through the turmoil.

Leading in Turbulent Times shows how you can use change to your advantage at a time when everyone else is being blown off course.

CEO

by Kevin Kelly

Published 1 January 2007

If you're a successful, ambitious executive, chances are you'll have dreamed of what it would be like in the top job. But what does it really mean to be a CEO? What would you have to do every day? What key qualities, experience and skills do all the top CEOs have in common? How would your performance be measured? And crucially, how do you land the top job?

Who better than the CEO of one of the world's best known executive search firms to answer these questions and to shed new insight on what it takes to succeed at the top?

In CEO, drawing on his unique access to the world's business leaders, Kevin Kelly opens the door of the corner office and lets you eavesdrop on conversations with the world's top CEO's, those who have stuck their necks out and really changed the way that things are done.

CEO provides a route-map for meeting the new challenges of building global organisations and sketches the new agenda for the world's CEOs. Sure CEOs still need to return value to shareholders and keep the financial analysts happy but the realities of business in the 21st century have changed, so that they also have to engage with new markers of success, like sustainability, ethics and genuine global impact. Find out what success means to people who have already made it and discover how you can make it too.

CEO. BE INSPIRED. BE SUCCESSFUL. BE THE CEO.