The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed
By Adam Bryant
4/5
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About this ebook
Dozens of top CEOs reveal their candid insights on the keys to effective leadership and the qualities that set high performers apart
What does it take to reach the top in business and to inspire others? Adam Bryant of The New York Times decided to answer this and other questions by sitting down with more than seventy CEOs and asking them how they do their jobs and the most important lessons they learned as they rose through the ranks. Over the course of extraordinary interviews, they shared memorable stories and eye-opening insights.
The Corner Office draws together lessons from chief executives such as Steve Ballmer (Microsoft), Carol Bartz (Yahoo), Jeffrey Katzenberg (DreamWorks), and Alan Mulally (Ford), from which Bryant has crafted an original work that reveals the keys to success in the business world, including the five essential personality traits that all high performers exhibit—qualities that the CEOs themselves value most and that separate the rising stars from their colleagues. Bryant also demystifies the art of leadership and shows how executives at the top of their game get the most out of others.
Leadership is not a one-size-fits-all skill, and these CEOs offer different perspectives that will help anyone who seeks to be a more effective leader and employee. For aspiring executives—of all ages—The Corner Office offers a path to future success.
Adam Bryant
Adam Bryant is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed. He writes the popular “Corner Office” feature in The New York Times’s business section and has served as the newspaper’s senior editor for features, deputy national editor, and deputy business editor. He was previously a senior writer and business editor at Newsweek. He and his family live in New York City.
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Reviews for The Corner Office
12 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5For his new book, "The Corner Office," Adam Bryant interviewed dozens of successful business executives and leaders to answer a simple question: "How did you get to where you are?" The result is not your typical management how-to but a chance to be the "fly on the wall" as these leaders share their stories, suggestions, advice, and lessons for new and experienced managers and leaders.Bryant organizes the book around three broad themes: "Succeeding," "Managing," and "Leading." The advantage of this structure is that readers are able to pick and choose sections to read based on their experiences and needs; there is no need to start at page one and plow through to the end.I'd also like to commend Bryant for staying out of the way of the CEOs themselves. His prose is simple and to the point, serving to bridge the selections from his interviews rather than distracting from them.While I wouldn't recommend this as a first book on management, it is a useful supplement for further reflection and insights.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5By being grounded in interviews with practicing CEOs, this book does not fall into the platitude-ridden traps of many management books. It thus contains tons of good advice for managers of many levels. As CEOs face the unique challenge of managing an entire organization, the advice will, at time, sometimes seem a little distant to managers of staff (line managers). However, managers of managers (i.e. Sr. Managers, Directors, VPs) will find a wealth of applicable advice.Adam Bryant's writing style is fluid and lively, as would be expected from a newspaper writer. And he clearly connects with his interviewees, drawing out anecdotes from their past as well as a number of generally applicable aphorisms. He demonstrates a genuine skill in combing through a large number of interviews and drawing out common themes.While infrequent, there some discussion with the interviewees about how they struggled and evolved their style. While there weren't many stories about how the interviewees learned what they learned, those that were present were helpful. Regardless, this book already has a number of bent pages and highlighter marks. And I anticipate that it will be loaned out frequently.Disclosure: I received a complimentary LibraryThing Early Reviewer copy of the book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Corner OfficeA good read for any level of management. Some of the stories are priceless. The Corner Office is highly recommended for entry level managers who want to take a break from all the tomes on management that are presently on the market. It would be invaluable to seasoned managers to keep those skills fresh.Adam Bryant has a great writing style. It flows, which is important in a work about succeeding as a manger and a leader. True, Bryant has a plethora of material to work with given the amount of quotes at his disposal but there is a gift in putting all this material together in a way that gets its message across to the reader and, more importantly, retains a high level of interest for the reader.Nuggets-of-gold statements, such as “Don’t micro-manage but have micro-interest,” pepper this work and serve to supplement the strong chapters. One strong chapter is “Smart Interviewing.” This in itself is a tool of great value that will help managers avoid the pitfalls that are inherent in finding that right candidate for an open position. The open-ended questions are brilliant and thought provoking, which is the purpose. You need to see that the new recruit can think on his feet.Anecdotes by corporate giants like Terry Lundgren and Joe Plumeri are excellent and serve to confirm that one of the most important aspects of management and leadership is the “human” element. Perhaps the most telling example of this involves a general, a private of a platoon doing infantry operations in terrible weather and the importance of small gestures. You’ll have to read it for yourself, though. Those stories, along with many others in this book, are well worth the read.Enjoy.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The advice in this book is useful. Bryant gleans the best advice from a larger number of effective leaders, and he delivers it in a simple, conversational format. I enjoyed reading this book and found it worth my time, despite having read quite a bit in this genre.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I won this as part of Library Thing's Early Reviewer program. Mr. Bryant is the author of the NY Times' "Corner Office" column. As a result, he interviews many Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). This book analyzes those interviews in an attempt to document common themes identified by a wide variety of CEOs as they relate to leadership.The book is divided into three parts -- Succeeding, Managing, and Leading. While most CEOs interviewed seemed to be on the fast track for leadership, it's clear that for many the path was not an express lane. They had some lessons to learn along the way, and they share those lessons.If you're wondering what it takes to be a top leader -- either to quantify qualities you identify in others or to see how you measure up, this book will help you do that while providing a path to follow if you decide you want to pursue a top leadership role. I highly recommend this book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I am not a CEO-- however, I hope CEO's, Managers, Regional Managers, Plant managers find this book into their hands.The info that was shared by the companies is very true in the real work place-people are very easily distracted, people are on a time constrants, people are in a hurry to get to the point everyday. His research for the book was very applicable to any work enviorment.I found the book to be very helpfull to see what goes on in big companies, big meetings also goes on in small mid-companies.I can apply what I learned in this book to all of my employees to better make them aware of why challenged people climb the ladder, and content people climb slowly. His insight to leadership, communication, peoples highs and lows, attitudes are awesome to understand. I would recommend this book to any employee- CEO or not,
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to lead and how to be successful in business are two mysteries many of us seek to solve every day. No wonder there is a long list of books that cover one or the other, or both of these topics. How to lead and how to succeed are the topics of The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOS on How to Lead and Succeed, by New York Times columnist Adam Bryant. The book is essentially a compilation of quotes from CEO’s whom Bryant has interviewed for his column, interspersed with some of Bryant’s own conclusions and syntheses. The result is somewhat tepid, an occasional kernel of wisdom, mixed in with much that is familiar to anyone who has read up on leadership or business. The book’s sub-title calls the lessons addressed between its covers “Indispensable and Unexpected.” “Indispensable,” yes. “Unexpected,” for the most part, no, unless you’ve never before run into concepts such as failure breeds success. One CEO remarked, “If you’ve ever had a setback and come back from it, I think it helps you make better decisions.” That is indispensable advice, but surprising only to those who have never read a quality book on business or leadership. For those just starting out on their path to learning about leadership and business, this book can be a non-challenging first step. And there is certainly some useful stuff here. For example, I like the author’s term, “passionate curiosity,” his shorthand expression for “an infectious sense of fascination with everything around them.” Bryant, who attributes this concept to Neil Minow, “the co-founder of the Corporate Library,” sees this as one common quality that “helps set [successful] CEOs apart.” Nevertheless, I come away feeling this book could have been something more. Bryant writes that in the book, “I have tried to play the role of dinner-party host, encouraging lively discussion and pointing out connections among the people gathered.” What is missing, however, is a sense of interaction between those metaphorical dinner party guests, the sense that there is actually a conversation going on. Rather than just recycling quotes from a wide variety of CEOs—and there are about 75 CEOs quoted in this book--the author may have produced a more useful tool if there were the sense that there is some interaction going on, if the author had compared and contrasted the philosophies, styles, and approaches of the quoted CEOs. Perhaps having laid the foundation in this book, Bryant could move further in that direction in his next one.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Corner Office is not your typical management/leadership books. First - it is incredibly readable - it just flows through the various topics. It is so readable because the author has used a series of personal stories from past and present CEOs to tell the story. It becomes very personable and very easy to relate to. Secondly, it is simple - Adam Bryant has pulled together lessons learned from interviewing 75 CEOs and leaders across various industries over the years and has distilled these inteviews into a series of well-thought out, and instructive lessons. Organized into three broad sections; Succeeding, Managing, and Leading; he addresses key characteristics for each. I found myself conducting a personal inventory of each characteristic as I was reading. Great stuff.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5There are a lot of books on leadership but Adam Bryant has written one that I highly encourage anyone interested in really seeing how leaders not only lead but how they learned to lead. By doing a masterful job of weaving together interviews from 75 past and present CEOs in a wide variety of areas. Mr. Bryant shares valuable insights for aspiring leaders. Whether you are about to graduate from college or have already spent a number of years in industry this is a book you should read, bookmark, highlight and keep on your bed stand. It is well written and well paced. He has divided the chapters into three sections: succeeding, managing, and leading. They are all excellent but I must say that the first two sections were my favorites.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is not a typical book about CEOs. A leader must be willing to show curiosity and willingness to ask the tough questions. This book assists with it throughout every chapter. There are expectations placed on a leader because of position, the book provides wonderful lessons about how to deal with these expectations. Each chapter allows the reader to contemplate about how he or she would handle the different types of situations, scenarios, issues, etc. The insights from the various CEOs who were interviewed for the book allows a new leader or experienced leader to glean from their experience in their leadership position. The lessons discussed in this book is equal to and in some instances exceed anything taught in a leadership course. Individuals can learn more about these indispensable and unexpected lessons from CEOs from Adam Bryant’s New York Times column, “Corner Office.” This book is recommended for anyone interested in leadership, regardless of organizational level or experience.