Review: Lead Like Ike by Geoff Loftus

In Lead Like Ike: Ten Business Strategies from the CEO of D-Day, author Geoff Loftus examines Dwight D. Eisenhower’s leadership of the D-Day Invasion in order to find management lessons for modern-day corporate executives. Eisenhower overcame tremendous hurdles, including extremely tight deadlines, the need to assemble a huge executive staff and company, a board with not entirely in-sync wants, a chairman who wouldn’t commit, and a mission that involved invading a continent and could lead to saving or losing millions of lives. Part history book, part business management guide, Lead Like Ike uses business terminology to describe the events leading up to D-Day and draws parallels between those events and common business situations.

This is an interesting book. The author takes a unique approach to a business leadership book and pulls it off quite nicely. Throughout the book there are modern-day examples to aid in the illustration and each chapter ends with “debriefing notes,” which are takeaway points from the chapter. The final chapter summarizes the business strategies found in the rest of the book and invites the reader to evaluate his/her own performance in regard to each strategy. Lead Like Ike is also a fascinating look at one of the most important military actions of World War II. Much more than just a business leadership guide, it offers a fresh angle on the events leading up to the Normandy invasion. I was drawn in to the story and learned a great deal.

Lead Like Ike is a great book for anyone in a leadership role, especially business leadership, and is also well-suited to anyone who enjoys history. If you read it, please let me know what you think by commenting below.