Strategic Leadership for Business Value Creation

This book focuses on leadership and strategy, corporate governance, operational excellence, and corporate social responsibility. In doing so, it offers both conceptual perspectives and case studies on these topics that are targeted at business executives who want to develop and mature towards being successful value creators in their leadership roles. Authored by the former CEO of National Australia Bank (NAB), Don Argus, and business school professor Danny Samson, the book provides insights on the strategic leadership factors that make a significant and positive difference when they are executed effectively and, in contrast, what happens when ineffective leadership/ strategy are deployed. It proposes and illustrates core leadership axioms, and also delves into sustainable development as an element of strategy. The authors do this by developing and illustrating core concepts that relate to the two major case study companies of NAB and BHP.Readers will be particularly interested in the core elements of leadership and strategy, and the grounded reality of how they operated in the case studies. The authors bring insiders’ and leaders’ perspectives to these topics, including tables that document shareholder value creation, and the logic behind strategic decisions, as well as key organisational leadership and strategic decision processes. Don Argus is an Australian businessman, Chairman of Bank of America Merrill Lynch Australia Advisory Board and Member of the Bank of America Global Advisory Council. He is the former Chairman of BHP Billiton (1999-2010) and Brambles (1999-2008), former Director of the Australian Foundation Investment Company (1999-2013) and former CEO of National Australia Bank (1991-1999). During his years as CEO of NAB, and as Chairman of BHP, these businesses outperformed their industry peers.  Danny Samson is Professor of Management at the University of Melbourne (since 1988), was Head of the Department of Management in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce, Director of the Foundation for Sustainable Economic Development, and was Chair and Director of the Centre for Manufacturing Management. He has published a dozen books on management topics, ranging from Innovation to Decision Sciences, and has provided high level consulting advice to a vast range of companies.