Since the start of this century, businesses have confronted a series of extreme and constant disruptions, including technological upheavals, a pandemic, and a global financial crisis. As a result, today’s leaders, from startup founders to the managers of global giants, face unprecedented pressures from their bosses, investors, customers, peers, suppliers, and employees. For many, it’s a recipe for disaster.
Part of the problem is that these challenges, while acutely felt, are rarely articulated in a way that makes them graspable and actionable. Robert E. Siegel has witnessed the impact of these cross-pressures from different perspectives. As a lecturer in management at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, an operator, a venture capitalist, and a consultant, he sees countless teams of managers, at all sorts of companies, struggling to lead their companies into the future.
Featuring exclusive lessons drawn from inside the business world, including from the CEOs of Accenture, Mubadala, Kering, Wells Fargo, and Box, The Systems Leader: Mastering the Cross-Pressures That Make or Break Today's Companies (Random House, 2025) is the essential guidebook that teaches readers “systems leadership,” Siegel’s holistic framework that helps leaders understand and master five key dimensions where they are likely to feel contradictory pressures:
• Priorities: The need to succeed at both execution and innovation
• People: The need to project both strength and empathy
• Sphere of influence: The need to focus both internally and externally
• Geography: The need to think both locally and globally
• Purpose: The need to pursue both ambition and statesmanship
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