9
LESSON EIGHT
“Loose-Tight” Leadership Builds Empires
I don’t believe in just ordering people to do things. You have to sort of grab an oar and row with them.
—HAROLD S. GENEEN,ITT
As a young entrepreneur trying to manage a fast-growing company, Patrick McGovern was influenced by Harold Geneen, an outspoken iconoclast who took over International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT) in 1959 and built it into a massive global conglomerate. During his 18-year tenure, Geneen grew the company from under $800 million in sales to $17 billion. Through countless acquisitions, he entered a variety of industries and geographies.
In the late 1960s, Geneen was the Steve Jobs of his day, a brash, self-involved visionary who reconsidered conventional ...
Get Future Forward: Leadership Lessons from Patrick McGovern, the Visionary Who Circled the Globe and Built a Technology Media Empire now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
