Nigel Nicholson

Strategies for Seeing, Being and Doing

The "I" of Leadership

This is the leadership book you have to read: a barn-storming new take on what makes a versatile, integrated, and effective leader Using stories and examples from the lives of leaders, from the sports stadium to the White House to the office of the CEO, Nicholson shows vividly how the capacity of leaders to see what others do not see frames their actions and allows them to transform, build, destroy, or stabilize. Leaders fail through lack of insight—into themselves and into the worlds they inhabit. The strategic challenge of leadership is to find the right balance between impact and versatility and the successful crafting of an identity that merges the leader and the surrounding culture or 'zeitgeist.' Leaders covered in the book include: George Bush, Tony Blair, George S Patton, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, Josef Stalin, Hannibal, Elizabeth I, Nelson Mandela, Edith Cowan, Abraham Lincoln, Mohandas Gandhi, Henry Ford, Ernest Shackleton, Barack Obama, Robert Maxwell, JFK, Pope John XXIII, Margaret Thatcher, and Samuel Pepys. This book resonates with insights and searching questions on the nature of human leadership. It will be an invaluable guide to managers, consultants, and people everywhere.

The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West examines the relationship between epinician and the heroizing narratives about athletes, or "hero-athlete narratives," that circulated orally in Sicily and Italy in the late archaic and early classical period. Drawing on the colorful stories told about athletes in later sources, the fragments of Simonides, and the surviving odes of Pindar and Bacchylides, it argues that epinician was formed in opposition to orally transmitted narratives and that these two forms-epinician and the hero-athlete narrative-promoted opposed political visions, with epinician promoting the Deinomenid empire and its structures and the hero-athlete narrative opposing Deinomenid rule. Combining an intimate knowledge of the material culture of the Greek West with an innovative use of available source material, The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West exposes the rich intersections between athletics and politics in Sicily and Italy, offering a new and compelling account of Deinomenid self-promotion and of the varied and complex communities that operated under the Deinomenids' control or within their shadow. Further, by establishing models of production and interpretation for the orally transmitted narratives and bringing them into dialogue with epinician, The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West reveals much about epinician as a form, how it developed in the Greek West, what meanings it already carried, and what meanings it accrued as it was appropriated by Hieron the second Deinomenid ruler.

Epinician, Oral Tradition, and the Deinomenid Empire

The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West

Michael West

Work role transitions are among the most significant yet least understood forms of social change, and how they affect individuals' careers, self-concepts and organizational adjustment is of great practical and theoretical importance. This book examines a comprehensive, large-scale study of the causes, form and outcomes of job change, focusing on middle to senior managers. The authors ask how much job change is taking place, assess who is most affected, and evaluate the psychological consequences for the individual manager. They discuss organizations' handling of job transitions, and provide a unique focus on women in management, evaluating how their experience of careers and job change differs from men's.

Men and Women in Transition

Managerial Job Change

Professor at Director of the Centre for Organizational Research Nigel Nicholson

In this book, Nicholson examines how aristocrats responded to the changes in athletics as they affected social structure.

Aristocracy and Athletics in Archaic and Classical Greece

Grant Gordon

Many of the world's most successful businesses are family owned. With this comes the threat of family bust-ups, sibling rivalry and petty jealousies. Family Wars takes you behind the scenes on a rollercoaster ride through the ups and downs of some of the biggest family-run companies in the world, showing how family in-fighting has threatened to bring about their downfall. Whether it's the Redstone's courtroom battles or the feud over Henry Ford's reluctance to let go of the reigns, the book reveals the origins, the extent and the final resolution of some of the most famous family feuds in recent history. Names you'll recognise include: the Gallo Family; the Guinness story; the Pathak family; and the Gucci family. An astonishing exposé of the way families do business and how arguments can threaten to blow a business apart, Family Wars also offers valuable advice on how such problems can be contained and solved.

Stories and Insights from Famous Family Business Feuds

Family Wars

We have taken ourselves out of the Stone Age Ã‚- but we cannot take the Stone Age out of ourselves. Time and time again managers and leaders have tried to eliminate hierarchies, internal politics, and interorganisational rivalry Ã‚- but to no avail. Why? Evolutionary psychology would say that they are working against human nature Ã‚- emotional and behavioral 'hardwiring' that is the legacy of our Stone Age ancestors. In this unique and important book, Professor Nigel Nicholson explores many of evolutionary psychology's central tenets and its implications for business management. The insights that this science provides into human instinct will prove illuminating to anyone seeking to understand why people act and think in frequently perplexing and unproductive ways while at work. Through his work at London Business School, Nigel Nicholson has placed himself at the forefront of this exciting Ã‚- some would say radical Ã‚- new field of evolutionary psychology. His research challenges many conventional beliefs about human nature and provides a more realistic picture of what motivates people and shapes their thoughts and actions at work. In Managing the Human Animal, he sets the record straight on what he regards as the utopian daydreaming which has led to ideas that indicate office politics, turf wars and gossip can be eliminated and that status and gender differences count for nothing. Instead, what he puts forward will intrigue and inform those looking to understand mankind's basic instincts and to mange them with skill.

Nigel Nicholson

Books

Your next favorite book is out there