Episode 26: We sit down with Willie Pieterson, Professor, The Practice of Management, Columbia Business School and discuss the blinds spots that can cause leaders to fall into their own leadership traps.

Willie Pietersen was raised in South Africa, and received a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. After practicing law, he embarked on an international business career. Over a period of twenty years he served as the CEO of multibillion-dollar businesses such as Lever Brothers Foods Division, Seagram USA, Tropicana and Sterling Winthrop’s Consumer Health Group.

In 1998, Pietersen was named Professor of the Practice of Management at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He specializes in strategy and the leadership of change, and his methods and ideas, especially Strategic Learning, are widely applied within Columbia’s executive education programs, and also in numerous corporations.

He has served as a teacher and advisor to many global companies, including CNA Insurance Group, CUBIC, Deloitte, Ericsson, Electrolux, ExxonMobil, First Command, Girl Scouts of America, Henry Schein, Inc., J&J (DePuy), National Council on Aging, Novartis, SAP, SRP, UGI Utilities, United Nations Federal Credit Union, Univation Technologies.

His most recent book is Leadership – The Inside Story: Time-Tested Prescriptions for Those Who Seek to Lead.

 
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Hosts: Dr. Kris Potrafka and David Hughen