From Smart to Wise: Acting and Leading with Wisdom

Preface

If its first twelve years are any indication, the twenty-first century risks going down in history as the century of scandals. A series of increasingly high-profile financial scandals—Enron, subprime mortgages, the LIBOR rate rigging—coupled with bailouts have knocked corporations off their high pedestal. Business leaders now grace the covers of leading magazines for all the wrong reasons—among them, Bob Diamond, Barclays Bank’s former CEO implicated in the LIBOR scandal, and Rajat Gupta, McKinsey & Company’s former managing director convicted of insider trading.

Diamond and Gupta are smart leaders known for their sharp intellect, and their organizations benefited greatly from their smartness. What got these leaders into trouble is not ...