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The Leadership Genius of Alfred P. Sloan
Book

The Leadership Genius of Alfred P. Sloan

Invaluable Lessons on Business, Management, and Leadership for Today's Managers

Allyn Freeman
McGraw-Hill, 2005

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

Alfred P. Sloan’s achievements during his 42-year career at General Motors went far beyond manufacturing and selling popular cars. He built GM into a world-changing corporation and reshaped American management by using critical thinking and democratic principles. Author Allyn Freeman puts Sloan into his proper historical and corporate context, showing how bold and innovative his management style was for its time. Freeman builds the book around Sloan, but weaves in modern examples that explain how other businesses have applied Sloan’s practices. While these examples are interesting, they sometimes distract from Sloan’s unusual and powerful story. getAbstract.com highly recommends this book to managers and business strategists looking for techniques and guidance from one of America’s greatest corporate leaders. It’s also good reading for people who are interested in corporate history. This is an exceptional book about an exceptional man.

Take-Aways

  • Alfred P. Sloan Jr. arrived at General Motors in 1920 to find that GM did not have rational management procedures.
  • When he became GM’s president in 1921, he had no auto-manufacturing experience.
  • Sloan’s management innovations included fact-based, consensus decision-making, open discussion, centralized power and the hiring of capable people.

About the Author

Allyn Freeman is a writer, consultant and author of six business books. For 20 years, he has worked in qualitative research and management, consulting for numerous Fortune 500 companies. He heads an international consulting firm.

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