Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times
Written by Nancy Koehn
Narrated by Nancy Koehn
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
“Five gritty leaders whose extraordinary passion and perseverance changed history…a gripping read on a timeless and timely topic” —Angela Duckworth, #1 bestselling author of Grit
An enthralling historical narrative filled with critical leadership insights, Forged in Crisis, by celebrated Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn, spotlights five masters of crisis: polar explorer Ernest Shackleton; President Abraham Lincoln; legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass; Nazi-resisting clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and environmental crusader Rachel Carson.
What do such disparate figures have in common? Why do their extraordinary stories continue to amaze and inspire? In delivering the answers to those questions, Nancy Koehn offers a remarkable template by which to judge those in our own time to whom the public has given its trust.
She begins each of the book’s five sections by showing her protagonist on the precipice of a great crisis: Shackleton marooned on an Antarctic ice floe; Lincoln on the verge of seeing the Union collapse; escaped slave Douglass facing possible capture; Bonhoeffer agonizing over how to counter absolute evil with faith; Carson racing against the cancer ravaging her in a bid to save the planet. The narrative then reaches back to each person’s childhood and shows the individual growing—step by step—into the person he or she will ultimately become. Significantly, as we follow each leader’s against-all-odds journey, we begin to glean an essential truth: leaders are not born but made. In a book dense with epiphanies, the most galvanizing one may be that the power to lead courageously resides in each of us.
Whether it’s read as a repository of great insight or as exceptionally rendered human drama, Forged in Crisis stands as a towering achievement.
Nancy Koehn
Nancy Koehn is an historian at the Harvard Business School where she holds the James E. Robison chair of Business Administration. She has coached leaders from many organizations and speaks frequently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Aspen Ideas Festival, and the World Business Forum. An accomplished author and scholar (she earned her MA and PhD degrees in history from Harvard), she spent ten years writing Forged in Crisis, her first book aimed at a popular audience. She lives in Concord, Massachusetts, and is a dedicated equestrian.
Related to Forged in Crisis
Related audiobooks
Leadership Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America's Founders Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLincoln's Mentors: The Education of a Leader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mighty and the Almighty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Contrarian's Guide to Leadership Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Courageous Cultures: How to Build Teams of Micro-Innovators, Problem Solvers, and Customer Advocates Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Leader's Bookshelf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leading Out Loud: A Guide for Engaging Others in Creating the Future Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Leader of the Future 2: Visions, Strategies, and Practices for the New Era Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Character Edge: Leading and Winning with Integrity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLive Life in Crescendo: Your Most Important Work is Always Ahead of You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Take Command Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 Non-Negotiables of Winning: Tying Soft Traits to Hard Results Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Pursuit of Excellence: The Uncommon Behaviors of the World's Most Productive Achievers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mission Transition: Navigating the Opportunities and Obstacles to Your Post-Military Career Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEverybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Elephant in the Boardroom: How Leaders Use and Manage Conflict to Reach Greater Levels of Success Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why We Revolt, 2nd Edition: A Patient Revolution for Careful and Kind Care Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Politics For You
The Prince Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 48 Laws of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Behold a Pale Horse Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All the Sinners Bleed: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Elon Musk Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Can't Joke About That: Why Everything Is Funny, Nothing Is Sacred, and We’re All in This Together Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Razorblade Tears: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The MAGA Diaries: My Surreal Adventures Inside the Right-Wing (And How I Got Out) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While Time Remains: A North Korean Girl's Search for Freedom in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Forged in Crisis
9 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5There are no hacks to true leadership. This book makes that clear. Well worth listening to and well done by the author, including narration.