Gautam Mukunda: Innovative Leadership

Companies that cannot innovate cannot succeed, and helping their companies to innovate is one of leaders’ most important, and least understood, responsibilities.

Through a series of studies of figures in politics, business, and science, Gautam Mukunda’s research shows what separates the extraordinary leaders who produce company and industry-changing innovations from ordinary ones, how some organizations are able to choose highly innovative leaders in surprising ways, and how different types of innovative challenges are likely to require very different types of leaders.

Changing an organization is leaders’  quintessential, and most challenging, task. Change efforts, however, are highly likely to fail, and too often leaders are far too resistant to changing the systems that brought them to power. 

In this presentation, Gautam Mukunda explains which leaders are likely to attempt to make substantial changes to the organizations they lead, when they are likely to succeed and fail, and how organizations can pick the leaders most likely to dramatically improve their performance.

The importance of leadership and the impact of individual leaders has long been the subject of debate. Are they made by history, or do they make it?

Gautam Mukunda offers a fresh look at how and when individual leaders can really make a difference.

Drawing from his book, “Indispensable” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012), he profiles a mix of historic and modern figures, and through the stories of how they came to power and made their most important decisions, he reveals how, when and where a single individual in the right place at the right time can save or destroy the organization they lead – or even change the course of history.

Mukunda also helps you understand how you can use this model in your life – whether as a citizen casting a ballot, an executive choosing your next CEO or a leader trying to make your mark.

As Wall Street’s size and profit continues to swell, so does its pressure and influence on public companies.

The problem is power, says Gautam Mukunda. And Wall Street has amassed an enormous and disproportionate share of it, forcing corporate executives to make risky decisions in the best interest of shareholder returns, not business value.

Pointing to compelling examples – from Boeing to Sara Lee to Dell – he discusses why so many leaders continue to succumb to the financial sector’s demands.

Based on his Harvard Business Review  “Spotlight” article, he also offers ideas for reform that will rebalance the American economy, which he says is vital to the competitiveness and health of the country.

American business needs to get involved, Mukunda urges. And for that, leadership is critical.