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Internationally acclaimed manager and bestselling author Sir Alex Ferguson enjoyed an astonishing soccer career—first in Scotland as a player and manager, and then with Manchester United Football Club, which he helped build into one of the most successful and valuable franchises in the world of sports. In his twenty-seven years with Manchester United, the club won thirty-eight trophies—and his remarkable forty-nine trophies accumulated over an entire career is almost double that of the next-most-winningest English club manager.
Now, in his new book LEADING: Learning from Life and My Time at Manchester United (Hachette Books; October 2015), co-written with author and legendary venture capitalist Sir Michael Moritz, Sir Alex reveals the tools, tactics, and pivotal decisions he applied throughout his record-breaking career to deliver sustained success on and off the field.
LEADING is wry and full of wisdom as Sir Alex discusses identifying, developing, and managing talent, measuring people, and much more. Analyzing the principal leadership approaches he applied and implemented over the duration of his career, Ferguson draws from his decades of experience to cover a long range of topics germane to every leader including: hiring practices; firing decisions; learning what personal traits to cultivate and strengthen; the art of delegation; fostering of and teamwork; the appropriate response to failure and adversity and personal time management. Successful business man and friend to Sir Alex, Michael Moritz draws out the wider lessons of how such examples of great leadership can generate long-term, transformational success.
The book features an enlightening epilogue by Sir Michael Moritz, chairman of Sequoia Capital, which takes a close look at how Sir Alex ran Manchester United and compares this to what he has observed during thirty years as an operator and investor in California’s Silicon Valley. He looks at the challenges and the competitiveness inherent in both worlds and illuminates how Sir Alex’s core principals of leadership are timeless and broadly applicable. LEADING is inspiring, astute and serves as a go-to reference for current and rising leaders in, or on, any field—business, sports, and life.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Sir Alex Ferguson is a former Scottish soccer player and manager who managed Manchester United from 1986 to 2013. His time at the club led to Ferguson being regarded as one of the most successful, admired, and respected managers in the history of the game. He retired as manager of Manchester United in 2013. He has gone on to work as a Fellow to the Executive Education Program at Harvard Business School and is a United Kingdom Ambassador for UNICEF.
Sir Michael Moritz is chairman of Sequoia Capital, the original backers of Apple, Cisco, YouTube, and WhatsApp; and has served on the board of directors of several other companies first backed by Sequoia which include Google, LinkedIn, PayPal and Yahoo!. He is a former journalist with Time and was the author of the The Little Kingdom, the first book written about Apple, the world’s most valuable company. Originally from Wales, he lives in San Francisco, CA.