Steve White’s path from the housing projects to president of Comcast West was punctuated by defining—and often heart-wrenching—moments. Moments that helped him identify what matters most and how he positively made a difference in his life and in those around him. As one of four boys raised by a single mother, Steve’s life could easily have taken a different path. Instead, armed with his mother’s determination that her sons make a better life for themselves and his own refusal to be shaped by his circumstances, Steve forged a path to extraordinary professional and personal achievement. Steve’s lessons from every stage of life, and the people who influenced him along the way, form the basis of his overarching message: An uncompromising life is one where you stay true to what is important to you, what you believe in, and what you love. This leads to more fulfillment, purpose, and a lasting legacy. An uncompromising approach to life means you are fiercely independent, radically responsible, scrappy, and possess an undistracted mindset. It also means you have an unwavering commitment to your fight, which is defined by your core values, passion, and purpose. You uphold the courage of your convictions, stay locked in on your goals, get up when you fall and continue to forge ahead. Steve’s hard-won insights will help you find your fight—pursuing what matters most and discovering where you can make the biggest difference.

How to create the high-performance, high-commitment organization Integrating knowledge from strategic management, performance management, and organization design, strategic human resource expert and Harvard Business School Professor Michael Beer outlines what the high-commitment, high-performance organization looks like and provides practitioners with the transformation process to help them get there. Starting with leaders who have the right values, Beer shows how to weave together a complete system that includes top-to-bottom communication, organization design, HR policies, and leadership transformation process, and outlines what practitioners must do in HR, structure, systems, goals, culture, and strategy to create high-performance organizations.

Meeting the new standard for leadership. Higher Ambition is required reading for every leader who refuses to compromise between people and performance. Choosing one or the other may have worked in the past, but it won’t work now. As global competition stiffens and businesses face increased public scrutiny and renewed government regulation, leaders must win on all fronts—with their people, their customers, their communities, and their shareholders. In short, they must deliver superior economic and social value. Brimming with powerful stories and thoughtful advice from CEOs themselves, Higher Ambition equips leaders with the practical insights they need to meet this new and higher standard. The authors, an international team of experts from leading business schools and consultancies, offer a unique view into the minds of some of the most successful and insightful leaders of our time: CEOs from vanguard companies around the world that have demonstrated the distinctive ability to do good while also doing well. These organizations are as diverse as Standard Chartered Bank, Infosys, Volvo, Cummins, IKEA, the Tata Group, and Campbell’s Soup. Readers will learn the principles and practices these pioneering leaders are using to: • Build enduring enterprises that simultaneously solve for people and profits • Forge winning strategies that leverage their companies’ unique cultural and human capabilities • Dramatically raise the aspirations and ambitions of their people • Energize and align their diverse global firms • Relentlessly upgrade leadership capabilities throughout their organizations Drawing on the author team’s extensive research and in-depth interviews with successful leaders from around the globe, this provocative new book is poised to become a management classic in the tradition of In Search of Excellence and Built to Last.

The Insightful Leader is the secret formula for claiming your best leadership and using it to achieve unlimited success. Traditional leadership coaching asks leaders to substitute ineffective behaviors with alternatives, without addressing the underlying internal beliefs that reinforce the old behaviors. After months of successfully trying to change, a leader may suddenly face stressors at work—a looming deadline or a difficult negotiation—that trigger counterproductive behavior, resulting in guilt, shame, and frustration. The Insightful Leader first helps readers to recognize ineffective behaviors that may be connected to one or more of ten "superpowers," or overused strengths. Readers embark on a step-by-step process, identifying their superpowers and understanding the strengths of these superpowers as well as when their overuse may cause them to be perceived as egotistical or manipulative. Having deepened their understanding of their superpowers, leaders then use them as a catalyst to discover adversity they may have faced in their past. The book guides them to uncover survival beliefs held over from these experiences and to reprogram them such that they no longer trigger self-destructive habits but instead focus on recent successes. Finally, tips are provided to help leaders to successfully sustain this transformation.

Discover the practical, step-by-step guide to creating a workplace culture that’s better for employees, customers, and stakeholders—and your company’s bottom line. For decades, talented people have tolerated old-school leaders who put results before respect, toxic company cultures, and workplaces that suck. But those days are over, and if leaders want to attract and retain the best employees—while improving productivity, customer service, employee satisfaction, and profits—it’s time for them to create work cultures where good comes first. The problem is that because the corporate world has too often been driven primarily by results, we seldom ask leaders to change their work cultures. Even if we did, most leaders don’t know how. This book provides the actionable inspiration and practical direction needed to make that change happen. In Good Comes First, S. Chris Edmonds and Mark S. Babbitt go beyond theoretical advice, using their combined 50 years of experience to present proven strategies for creating purposeful, positive and productive work cultures. Cultures where good comes first for employees, customers, leaders, and stakeholders—and where improved business outcomes quickly follow. In these pages, readers will learn to: Appreciate why a good comes first culture is a business imperative – especially for younger generations. Distance yourself from the competition that maintains its undefined work culture (one that most likely sucks). Identify what “good” means for your company in today’s business climate – and in the future of work. Define your uncompromising work culture as you build a foundation of respect AND results. Formalize your team’s servant purpose so that everyone understands how what your team does improves lives and communities. Specify respectful behaviors, so your desired values are observable, tangible, and measurable. Align your entire organization to your desired work culture – where good comes first every day. Assess the quality of your current work culture by measuring and monitoring how well your leaders and your executive team demonstrate your servant purpose, valued behaviors, strategies, and goals. Hold everyone accountable for both respect and results through modeling, celebrating, measuring, coaching, and mentoring leaders and team members. Implement real, needed change – and quit “thinking” and “talking” about change (but never really get change started). Become a change champion while creating a lasting legacy as a business leader. Build a team of good people doing good work in a good company. What’s more, Good Comes First shows you where potential barriers to success hide—and how to push through them—and illuminates the moments when you’ll feel the most satisfaction and gain the most traction. After reading this book, you will see that when done right, change is not only possible—it’s practical, powerful, and profitable. And you will realize that you are the right person, at the right time, to make that change happen.

"In today's cut-throat, get-ahead-at-all-costs world, the idea of showing basic decency towards one another has sadly been pushed to the side. Yet, the power of respectful, positive leadership can be more impactful now than ever before.--Publisher's description.

Historians speak of the shot heard 'round the world, but the American Revolution might better be described in terms of the speech heard 'round the world. For more than two hundred years, the impassioned speech of Patrick Henry - I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death - has resounded in the hearts and minds of freedom-loving people everywhere. Henry's life embodied the spirit of American courage and patriotism. Give Me Liberty goes beyond the oratory and eloquence to portray this remarkable man, his family, his ideas, and his times.

Accomplished political leaders have a clear strategy for turning political visions into reality. Through well-honed analytical, political, and emotional intelligence, leaders chart paths to promising futures that include economic growth, material prosperity, and human well-being. Alas, such leaders are rare in the developing world, where often institutions are weak and greed and corruption strong—and where responsible leadership therefore has the potential to effect the greatest change. In Transformative Political Leadership, Robert I. Rotberg focuses on the role of leadership in politics and argues that accomplished leaders demonstrate a particular set of skills. Through illustrative case studies of leaders who have performed ably in the developing world—among them Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Seretse Khama in Botswana, Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, and Kemal Ataturk in Turkey—Rotberg examines how these leaders transformed their respective countries. The importance of capable leadership is woefully understudied in political science, and this book will be an important tool in exploring how leaders lead and how nations and institutions are built.

What makes a truly exceptional leader? Discover the practical, fail-proof tools that will help you to fine-tune your leadership skills, solidify respect among your workforce, and ensure your company’s lasting success. When Martin G. Moore was asked to rescue a leading energy corporation from ever-increasing debt and a lack of executive accountability, he faced an uphill battle. Not only had he never before stepped into the role of CEO; he also had no experience in the rapidly evolving energy sector. Relying on the practical leadership principles he had honed throughout his thirty-three-year career, he overhauled the company’s culture, redefined its leadership capability, and increased earnings by a compound annual growth rate of 125 percent. In No Bullsh!t Leadership, Moore outlines these proven leadership principles in a clear, direct way. He sweeps away the mystical fog surrounding leadership today and lays out the essential steps for success. Moore combines this tangible advice with honest, real-world examples from his own career to provide a no-nonsense look at the skills a true leader possesses. Moore’s principles for no bullshit leadership focus on: Creating value by focusing only on the things that matter most Facing conflict, adversity, and ambiguity with decisiveness and confidence Setting uncompromising standards for behavior and performance Selecting and developing great people Making those people accountable, and empowering them to do their best Setting simple, value-driven goals and communicating them relentlessly Though the steps aren’t easy, they are guaranteed, if implemented, to lift your leadership–and your organization–to a higher level. Wherever you are in your career, No Bullsh!t Leadership will help you develop the skills and form the habits needed to become a no bullshit leader.