Power Ambition Glory: The Stunning Parallels between Great Leaders of the Ancient World and Today . . . and the Lessons You Can Learn

Based  on an extraordinary collaboration between Steve Forbes, chairman, CEO,  and editor in chief of Forbes Media, and classics professor John Prevas,  Power Ambition Glory provides intriguing comparisons between six great leaders of the ancient world and contemporary business leaders.

•  Great leaders not only have vision but know how to build structures to  effect it. Cyrus the Great did so in creating an empire based on  tolerance and inclusion, an approach highly unusual for his or any age.  Jack Welch and John Chambers built their business empires using a  similar approach, and like Cyrus, they remain the exceptions rather than  the rule.
• Great leaders know how to build consensus and motivate  by doing what is right rather than what is in their self-interest.  Xenophon put personal gain aside to lead his fellow Greeks out of a  perilous situation in Persia–something very similar to what Lou Gerstner  and Anne Mulcahy did in rescuing IBM and Xerox.
• Character matters  in leadership. Alexander the Great had exceptional leadership skills  that enabled him to conquer the eastern half of the ancient world, but  he was ultimately destroyed by his inability to manage his phenomenal  success. The corporate world is full of similar examples, such as the  now incarcerated Dennis Kozlowski, who, flush with success at the head  of his empire, was driven down the highway of self-destruction by an  out-of-control ego.
• A great leader is one who challenges the  conventional wisdom of the day and is able to think out of the box to  pull off amazing feats. Hannibal did something no one in the ancient  world thought possible; he crossed the Alps in winter to challenge Rome  for control of the ancient world. That same innovative way of thinking  enabled Serge Brin and Larry Page of Google to challenge and best two  formidable competitors, Microsoft and Yahoo!
• A leader must have  ambition to succeed, and Julius Caesar had plenty of it. He set Rome on  the path to empire, but his success made him believe he was a living god  and blinded him to the dangers that eventually did him in. The  parallels with corporate leaders and Wall Street master-of-the-universe  types are numerous, but none more salient than Hank Greenberg, who built  the AIG insurance empire only to be struck down at the height of his  success by the corporate daggers of his directors.
• And finally,  leadership is about keeping a sane and modest perspective in the face of  success and remaining focused on the fundamentals–the nuts and bolts of  making an organization work day in and day out. Augustus saved Rome  from dissolution after the assassination of Julius Caesar and ruled it  for more than forty years, bringing the empire to the height of its  power. What made him successful were personal humility, attention to the  mundane details of building and maintaining an infrastructure, and the  understanding of limits. Augustus set Rome on a course of prosperity and  stability that lasted for centuries, just as Alfred Sloan, using many  of the same approaches, built GM into the leviathan that until recently  dominated the automotive business.