Charismatic Business Leadership

Richard Tedlow is the Class of 1949 Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at the Harvard Business School, where he spent three decades teaching business history. Richard left HBS in 2010 to join the faculty of the new Apple University and retired in 2018. Earlier this year, he published The Emergence of Charismatic Business Leadership, which is the subject of the show. Our conversation covers Richard’s background and lessons learned teaching for four decades. We then turn to his latest tome, discussing the American history of business leaders without charisma, transitional period introducing charisma, and the modern era of superstar CEOs. Along the way, we discuss the definition, traits, downside, and future of charismatic business leadership.