Living Legends, Learning Lessons by Bala V. Balachandran |KAVIPRIYA A [with cd]

Book Summary: 

Living Legends, Learning Lessons is a leadership‑and‑inspiration book that profiles ten luminaries from business, government, academia and spirituality. The idea is to go “up close and personal” with people who started in ordinary circumstances but went on to lead transformational lives. Some of the people profiled include Ratan Tata, N. R. Narayana Murthy, Adi Godrej, Kiran Mazumdar‑Shaw, Vinita Bali, former RBI governor Rangarajan, Deepak Chopra and others. For each one, the book explores their childhood, early influences, challenges, failures, and how they developed their leadership characteristics—qualities like humility, integrity, foresight, ability to take risks, resilience in face of failure, purpose, insight, etc. 

The book is supplemented with a DVD (CD‑ROM) that contains interviews / conversations, giving readers a chance to see and hear these leaders speak rather than just read about them. It aims to make leadership relatable—not as distant or abstract, but as something people in many walks of life can model.

Overall, Living Legends, Learning Lessons is motivational, designed for students, emerging leaders, or anyone interested in real‑life examples of people who succeeded by combining values, vision and hard work. It offers concrete life lessons more than theoretical frameworks. 

About the Author: 

Bala V. Balachandran (5 July 1937 – 27 September 2021) was a distinguished Indian academic and management educator. He held the position of J.L. Kellogg Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) of Accounting, Information & Management at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He was also the founder, chairman and dean emeritus of Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, which he helped build into one of India’s well‑regarded B ‑schools. Balachandran’s career combined rigorous academics with real‑world leadership. He taught, consulted, and mentored widely. His work often focused on leadership, cost/accounting information systems, decision support, and strategic profitability. He was deeply connected to the stories of people and institutions, believing that learning comes from both success and failure. His humility, integrity, and personal warmth were often remarked upon. He was honored by the Government of India with the Padma Shri in 2001 for his contributions in higher education.