Accidental Leadership: A Personal Journey

Accidental Leadership charts the extraordinary career of Paul Mooney, who progressed through a range of jobs from messenger to apprentice butcher, eventually becoming President of the National College of Ireland. Along the way he also worked as a laundry manager, in HR positions with General Electric and Sterling Drug in Ireland and Asia, and ran a successful business consultancy in Ireland for over fifteen years. Based on this diverse career experience, Mooney has developed a powerful leadership model, illustrated with real life examples of leadership in action. The key questions posed are brought to life with examples of best (and worst) practices which Mooney witnessed while working with a range of top Irish and international leaders. Written in an engaging and witty style, the book brings the key concepts within leadership to life. Few Irish executives write about their experiences or beliefs. They are too busy doing - they don’t put time into thinking or reflection. Accidental Leadership is that rare book - authentic, honest and powerful. Mooney writes: ‘This book is an attempt to sharpen my own thinking, a sort of long letter to myself on leadership. The things I wish I’d known when starting out. The cul-de-sacs and apologies that could have been avoided. The distilling of 30+ years of mistakes into a couple of key headings in which the contradictions and conundrums of leadership are explored.’ Not nearly enough is written about doing business in Ireland, with few reflections on the things that work and don’t work in an Irish context. Accidental Leadership adds Irish flavour to the leadership debate and the ‘storytelling’ method employed makes this compelling book stand out in a crowded space.