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- Elizabeth I CEO: Strategic Lessons from the Leader Who Built an Empire
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- Author: Alan Axelrod
- Reviewer: Judith Woolcock Colombo
- Publisher: Prentice Hall Press, New Jersey
- Format: Adult, Nonfiction, Paperback, 274 Pages, $14, 2002
- ISBN: 0735203571
- Rating: * * * * Quills
- www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0735203571/scriquil
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- When I was a child, I studied British history. Among all the monarchs that truly ruled England, I came to regard Elizabeth I as the greatest monarch that country ever had. As I grew up and read more about her, I came to admire her courageous and intelligent leadership. I admired her as the woman who took a bankrupt and dissolute nation and turned it into a prosperous and productive one.
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- Elizabeth took a nation impoverished by wars and built it into a vast empire, especially with England's acquisitions of lands in the Americas. Of course, like every leader, her actions started a chain of events that had diverse future consequences, some wonderful for her nation, but terrible for the other nations that became ensnared in England's empire building.
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- However, no one can really argue that Elizabeth was not a wise and prudent ruler given the times in which she ruled and the condition of the nation that fell into her hands at the age of 25. Although many of her tactics of absolute rule could not be applied in a modern nation, her methods of accepting responsibility not only for her own actions and those of her subordinates, but in commanding the love and loyalty of her people are unparalleled by any modern leader.
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- In Elizabeth I CEO, historian Alan Axelrod has taken many of the traits and practices Elizabeth used to turn the fortunes of a nation around and applied them to the running of a modern business. Axelrod states, "You can learn that being a leader is being a leader, whether your enterprise is a Renaissance kingdom, a small business, a major corporation, a corporate department, or a three-person work group with a job to do."
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- Axelrod uses Elizabeth's behavior and words to map a blueprint for corporate survival, personal image building, staff development and control, and success. The author uses 136 examples from Elizabeth's life and rule to make specific points. He illustrates these points with incidents taken from Elizabeth's life and from her superb speeches. Many of the examples, such as the ones illustrating pointers such as "Survival Is Never About Panic," "Control The Message Not The Messenger" or "Taking The Path Of Creative Compromise," are valid applications of Elizabeth's principles of rule to modern business practices.
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- However, other pointers, such as "Getting Your People In Line" that illustrated Elizabeth's endeavor to get the bishops to enforce the unification of the church, unsuccessfully apply an example, however valid, from Elizabethan England to modern business. There are a few of these stretches in the book. Nevertheless, Elizabeth I CEO works not only because there are many interesting and successful comparisons between how this remarkable woman ran a successful country and a modern business leader building a successful company, but because to many people the life and rule of this woman is a fascinating example of how one can rule creatively and ethically.
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- One thing I learned from this book was that to rule a nation or a company and to rule it well is an extremely difficult task. It was even more so in Elizabeth's day when a nation's dissatisfaction with a leader would not lead to impeachment, but to imprisonment and execution.
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- I really liked this book, but perhaps not for the reason its author intended. Although many of Axelrod's arguments are valid, I found the book most interesting, not as a blueprint to running a business or carving out a corporate empire, but as a character study. I have always admired courage, honesty and conviction. Elizabeth I was a woman and ruler who embodied all of these qualities.
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- In a time when Kings and Queens ruled by divine right, she genuinely cared for her people, wooed them and moved among them listening to them. Often she refused the easier path and traveled the difficult one because it was the correct thing to do. This book brings that aspect of Elizabeth's reign to light. Instead of recommending this book to corporate CEOs or managers, we should present it to presidents and prime ministers. I highly recommend it.
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