Leadership and motivation Books

"Do not try to change yourself," argues Peter Drucker in Managing Oneself . "You are unlikely to succeed. But work hard to improve the way you perform." This book takes that advice to heart and uses evidence-based methods to show how to act on it.8 Steps...

Creating an authentic leadership style that aligns with your personal values and character can have a host of benefits. But in the face of uncertainty, conflict, and cultural expectations, many struggle to show their vulnerability while still appearing...

Are you where you want to be professionally? Whether you want to advance faster at your present company, change jobs, or make the jump to a new field entirely, Reinventing You, now in paperback with a new preface, provides a step-by-step guide...

How to be human at work. HBR's Emotional Intelligence Series features smart, essential reading on the human side of professional life from the pages of Harvard Business Review. Each book in the series offers proven research showing how...

Put aside all the hypey new frameworks, the listicles, the "10 best things you need" to succeed as a leader today. The critical leadership practices - the ones that will allow a leader to make the biggest impact over time - are already well established...

Most leaders think they're effective at motivating their employees, but study after study shows that employees are more disengaged and uninspired than ever. The solution lies not in more management training or fun off-sites but in looking within--into...

Empathy is credited as a factor in both improved relationships and even better product development. But while it's easy to say "just put yourself in someone else's shoes," the reality is that understanding the motivations and emotions of others is an...

How do some people bounce back with strength from daily setbacks, professional crises, or even intense personal trauma? This book reveals the key traits of those who emerge stronger from challenges, helps you train your brain to withstand the stresses of...

What is the nature of human happiness, and how do we achieve it in the course of our professional lives? And is it even worth pursuing? This book explores answers to these questions by presenting research into how happiness is measured, frameworks for...

The benefits of mindfulness include better performance, heightened creativity, deeper self-awareness, and increased charisma-not to mention greater peace of mind. This book gives you practical steps for building a sense of presence into your daily work...

The most important ideas on management all in one placeWe've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on topics such as emotional intelligence, communication, change, leadership, strategy, managing people, and...

The guide for professionals in their 30s to 50s on breaking out of a career rut and finding their way toward the next satisfying chapter of their work lives.Gives readers the confidence and advice they need to know that they can successfully change...

Develop the mindset and presence to successfully manage others for the first time. If you read nothing else on becoming a new manager, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and...

Conventional wisdom - and business school curricula - teaches us that making trade-offs is inevitable when it comes to hard choices. But sometimes, accepting the obvious trade-off just isn't good enough: the choices in front of us don't get us what we...

Being seen as a high potential leader is essential to getting promoted and reaching an organisation's upper echelons, but most companies keep their top talent list a closely guarded secret. And the assessment process they use to decide who is and isn't a...

Digital transformation is no longer news. It is a necessity. Sunil Gupta, head of the digital transformation practice at Harvard Business School, provides a framework for large organizations to think through where and how to begin their transformation...

As established markets become less profitable, companies increasingly need to find ways to create and capture new markets. Despite much investment and commitment, most firms struggle to do this. What, exactly, is getting in their way? The authors of the...

Ten years ago, two INSEAD professors broke ground by introducing "blue ocean strategy," a new model for discovering uncontested markets that are ripe for growth. In this book, they apply their concepts and tools to what is perhaps the greatest challenge...

A leader's singular job is to get results. But even with all the leadership training programs and "expert" advice available, effective leadership still eludes many people and organizations. One reason, says Daniel Goleman, is that such experts offer...

When asked to define the ideal leader, many would emphasize traits such as intelligence, toughness, determination, and vision-the qualities traditionally associated with leadership. Often left off the list are softer, more personal qualities-but they are...

We all need help - especially in today's uber-collaborative workplaces. Here's the good news: humans are naturally wired to want to help each other. Now here's the bad: asking for help makes most of us wildly  uncomfortable. As a result, we do a...

In thirty years of working in corporations, Michael Beer has witnessed how organisational silence has derailed many a strategic objective. When lower-level employees in the organisation can't speak truth to power, senior leaders don't hear what they need...

What does it take to create the career you want? It's no secret that the world of work has changed, and we're shifting toward an ever more entrepreneurial, self-reliant, work-from-wherever-you-are economy. That can be a liberating force, and many...

It's a manager's job to make the tough calls, but the hardest part of being a manager is resolving those "gray areas"-situations where analysis of the numbers, facts, and data fails to provide a clear answer. These gray areas test not only a manager's...

Whether you're hosting a conference call or running a WebEx meeting, virtual meetings are ripe for problems. Poor call quality, people forgetting to mute, people staying muted rather than participating-the list of things that can and do go wrong...

Manage your team from anywhere.Leading any team involves managing people, technical oversight, and project administration, but leaders of virtual teams perform these functions from afar. Leading Virtual Teams walks you through the basics of:Connecting...

The one primer you need to develop your managerial and leadership skills.Whether you're a new manager or looking to have more influence in your current management role, the challenges you face come in all shapes and sizes--a direct report's anxious...

Too many companies are managed not by leaders, but by mere role players and faceless bureaucrats. What does it take to be a real leader-one who is confident in who she is and what she stands for, and who truly inspires people to achieve...

Teams are the key to top performance. It's long been known that teams, more so than single individuals and large groups, are the best at solving complex problems and delivering results. Great teams enabled Motorola to build the lightest, smallest, and...

Master your most pressing professional challenges with this seven-volume set that collects the smartest best practices from leading experts all in one place. HBR Guide to Better Business Writing and HBR Guide to Persuasive...

In the years since publication of First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, millions have had the simple but powerful realization that to get the most out of people you must build on their strengths. And yet...as Marcus...

Who really moves things forward in our society and how do they do it? How have they always done it? Strategy guru Roger Martin and Skoll Foundation CEO Sally Osberg make a compelling argument that social entrepreneurs are agents of change who recognize,...

What makes a leader? Can you really learn to lead? You might think that leaders need to be born with the right skills or personality attributes. Perhaps you believe you don't have the right experience or that you need to hold an important job to be a...

Dysfunctional teams are maddening-yet are a reality of organizational life. How often have you sat in team meetings complaining to yourself, "What a colossal waste of time. Why does it take forever for this group to make a simple decision? What are we...

In his defining work on emotional intelligence, Dan Goleman has found that it is twice as important as other competencies in determining outstanding leadership. If you read nothing else on emotional intelligence, read these 10 articles. We've combed...

Stay focused. Stick to your knitting. Go with what works. In today's volatile economic environment, filled with uncertainty and sudden change, the forces pushing us to keep focused on the core business become extremely powerful. And, of course, profiting...

Leaders already know that innovation calls for a different set of activities, skills, methods, metrics, mind-sets, and leadership approaches-it is well-understood that creating a new business and optimizing an already existing one are two fundamentally...

Conducting a performance review can be a stressful task for any manager. But these formal conversations are an important way to communicate how a direct report is performing relative to his or her goals. Performance Reviews provides practical advice on...

Don't leave creativity up to the "creatives" in your organization. Fostering creativity within your team can help your organization solve problems, create innovative products, break out into a new market, and even communicate...

Being Essential presents the seven questions that will help any leader discover an authentic path to the true self and master a virtuous cycle of self-awareness that fosters purpose, value, and joy at work and in life.Leaders often know what they need to...

This Book Will Motivate You by master life coach, Steve Chandler, helps you create an action plan for living your vision, in business and in life. It features more than 100 proven methods to positively change the way you think and act - methods based on...

Bruce Lee was a brand well before that became commonplace. Step into the Dragon's mind and explore how he thought about business, goals, and life.The Bruce Lee Code focuses on the business strategies prevalent in Lee's life and teachings that helped...

Harness Your Digital Empathy and Learn Skills to Be a Better Boss, Employee, and Colleague in a Virtual or Hybrid OfficeHow do you manage a poor performer over Zoom? How do you casually deliver positive feedback via Slack? What's the most professional...

If you hate your job and want change, the starting point is with you! Get unstuck, move past boredom, and discover how to flourish at work. This book is for anyone stuck in a rut, burned out, or just plain tired.Has your career plateaued? Do you...

Confucius said that a thousand-mile journey begins with a single step. The same principle applies to becoming a self-made millionaire, except this journey is a little shorter, comprising just 52 common sense practices.Featuring interviews with a...

In the world of work, the single greatest asset of successful individuals, teams, and organizations is their mindset--what happens in between their ears. It's not the corporate strategy, the sales compensation plan, or the market segments they're...

Are you making it difficult for your potential customers to buy from you?Today's buyers are overloaded - overwhelmed by too much information and suffering from decision fatigue. Across industries, customers are delaying purchasing decisions or even...

Whether you are at work or at home, you are probably being asked to do more with less. We often become consumed with what doesn't really matter, and spend far too much of our precious time on what doesn't even count. In Simple Is the New Smart, Dr. Rob...