Is leadership history?: Essays on the epochal threat to leadership

Andre van Heerden is the founder of the corporate leadership program, The Power of Integrity. Drawing on the perspectives of history, philosophy, classic literature, and psychology, as well as a wealth of varied business experience, Andre demonstrates the impact of leaders and misleaders on business, making plain the psychologies of progress and regress. He shows how corporate culture determines performance, and how leadership or misleadership determine corporate culture. His highly successful Power of Integrity(TM) Leadership Program has earned enthusiastic praise from hundreds of corporate leaders over the past eight years. Andre has very appropriate qualifications for dealing with the challenge of change and the need for character in society. He grew up as a cultural exile and comes from a country that doesn’t exist anymore. Since studying law at Rhodes University in South Africa, he has been a filing clerk on the Rhodesian Railways, a history teacher, a deputy headmaster, a soldier, a policeman, a refugee, an advertising writer, a creative director, an immigrant, a marketing communications strategist, an account director for leading multinational brands, a marketing consultant, a conference speaker, a leadership coach, and an author. His books include Leaders & Misleaders, An Educational Bridge for Leaders, Leading Like You Mean It, and Is Leadership History? His career in advertising involved working with a wide array of international blue-chip brands like Toyota, Lexus, Ford, Jaguar, Honda, Renault, Kodak, Canon, American Express, Kimberley Clark, SC Johnson, Motorola, and John Deere, and prominent New Zealand brands such as Farmers Trading Co. and Tararua Dairy Products. The corporate learning program he now provides involves working with leading New Zealand companies and organizations engaged in scientific research, the dairy industry, food production, retail, financial services, real estate, advertising, print production, governmental services, education and training, accountancy, and legal services. Andre’s creative work earned recognition in South Africa, Europe, the United States, and in the Asia Pacific region. His interests include philosophy, psychology, history, politics, and rugby. He is a fanatical supporter of the All Blacks. Andre is married with four children, two young men and two adult daughters. He and his family have lived in Auckland for the past 31 years.