Well written, easy to read. Hard acts to follow. You will get to know three successful business leaders. What are their background, childhood, education and career? What happened to their companies when they were leading them? Interviews with each one of them in which many questions are answered that you probably would have asked. The companies are large, global and successful. There is a lot to learn. It is not a cookbook. The authors make a useful summary but when you reflect about what the three persons have done there are not only many things they all did but also many things they did differently. I bought the book because it was listed under the heading "business ethics" in an Amazon search. The book is not directly about ethics. It is useful in that context as it shows that these three leaders through their actions demonstrate having moral convictions. Part of that conviction is to deliver shareholder value but also strong feelings of responsibility for the environment and social issues. Furthermore they have been able, with a lot of hard work, to impart this concept on all of the employees. All three believe that employees become much more motivated and loyal to the organisation when they feel that they are working towards goals in addition to shareholder value. One also becomes convinced that they do not set these wider goals as a public relations exercise or a clever way to motivate people to work harder. These leaders are totally sincere in what they say and what they do.

The book gives valuable insight into the way these three ground-breaking European leaders think about business, and how they successfully manage global organizations. The book clearly illustrate the different personal traits of the subjects (the builder, the transformer, and the integrator), and ecourages the reader to challange the pros and cons of the different philosophies. The book reads very much like a case study, and provides an excellent but basic overview over the global marketplace and on how to be able to draw on the ideas implemented by these great leaders.

Growth on a global stage is the only way to sustainable success. It is an enormous challenge to grow let alone accomplish it globally. This book provides tangible object lessons on how these leaders have done it. If first-hand learning is best, then these stories approximate that construct.

This is an engaging and usefull guide to a difficult act.

Prof. Kets de Vries is the only writer I am aware of to combine knowledge of management and Psychoanalytical theory. He applies this to family businesses with talent and clarity: after reading this book one can understand what Freud was all about.

Know any managers who act quite strangely? Or even downright dysfunctionally? Do you ever find yourself doing something you wished you had not, and then wondering, "What came over me?"

Humans behave oddly at times, even in the workplace; even at the top of the hierarchy. And no one, it seems, is quite who they seem to be. Did you know that family entertainment mogul Walt Disney made a habit of eating donuts drowned in whiskey-for breakfast!

A veritable smorgasbord of engaging tales and insights are chronicled in this book. Manfred F.R. Kes de Vries knows much about executives' strange behaviors because he's a psychologist who interacts with senior managers the world over. A clinical professor of leadership development, he is program director of a top management program at INSEAD in France. De Vries also taught at McGill University in Canada, the Harvard Business School in the U.S., as well as lecturing and consulting around the world.

De Vries chronicles and explains a wide variety of counter-productive executive maladies such as: excessive narcissism (self-centeredness); unusual-even inappropriate-responses to associates; excessive compulsions; extreme need for control; self-defeating behaviors; and on and on. Flip through the book, land on any page and your sure to recognize a description of someone you know (perhaps even someone who stares back at you from the mirror).

The book provides a fascinating glimpse into the vagaries of human behavior, especially by people who have been conferred with organizational power. De Vries offers up many insightful examples, interesting anecdotes, some wit, and very approachable explanations of psychological concepts in lay terms, along with some self-assessment exercises (of varying usefulness).

The book is not held together by a discernible thesis; it doesn't provide you with many actionable skills. But if you'd like to know more about why you and other otherwise very bright and capable people do odd things, this book provides a delightful peek into the executive skull.