Leadership Memoir

Remarkable lessons in leadership and team building from one of the greatest football coaches of our time. Urban Meyer has established himself as one of the elite in the annals of his sport, having lead his players to three national championships. In Above the Line, he offers listeners his unparalleled insights into leadership, team building, and the keys to empowering people to achieve things they might never have thought possible.

In this path-breaking and genre-defying book, Parmesh Shahani - vice president at Godrej Industries Ltd - draws from his decade-long journey in the corporate world as an out and proud gay man to make a cogent case for LGBTQ inclusion and lay down a step-by-step guide to reshaping office culture in India.

This powerful collection of stories reveals how the world's leading women in business have overcome some of life's biggest challenges to reach the top of their professions. This is an audiobook written for every current and aspiring leader, revealing the things that leaders rarely talk about; the behind-the-scenes struggles. The women in these stories are powerful, internationally diverse and have impressive leadership accomplishments.

Kip Tindell, the founder and CEO of The Container Store, reveals the seven secrets to keeping both customers and employees happy and all fully engaged. In Uncontainable, Tindell reveals his approach for building a business where everyone associated with it thrives through embodying the tenets of conscious capitalism. Tindell's seven foundation principles are the road map that drives everyone at The Container Store to achieve the goals of the company.

Adam Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was just 16 years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. But while traveling as a college student, he met a young boy begging on the streets of India. When Braun asked the boy what he wanted most in the world, he simply answered, "A pencil." This small request became the inspiration for Pencils of Promise, the organization Braun would leave a prestigious job at Bain & Company to start with just $25 at the age of 24.

History often appears to consist of big gestures and dramatic shifts. But for every peace treaty signed, someone set the stage and provided the pen. As social secretary to the Clintons for eight years, and more recently as chief of protocol under President Obama, Capricia Penavic Marshall has not just borne witness to history, she facilitated it. For Marshall, diplomacy runs on the invisible gesture: the micro-moves that affect the macro-shifts. Facilitation is power, and more often than not, it is the key to effective diplomacy.

In 1986, fresh out of college, Paul Downs opened his first and last business: a small company that built custom furniture. With no idea how to run a business or how to build custom furniture, Downs spent a year teaching himself the business, and in 1987 he hired his first employee. That was when things got complicated.

In the best-selling tradition of Liar's Poker comes a devastatingly accurate and darkly hilarious behind-the-scenes look at the wonderful world of management consulting.

In Players First, John Calipari relates for the first time anywhere his experiences over his first four years coaching the Kentucky Wildcats, college basketball's most fabled program, from the doldrums to a national championship, drawing lessons about leadership, character, and the path to personal and collective victory. At its core, Calipari's coaching philosophy centers on keeping his focus on the players - what they need to get the best out of themselves and one another.

Arthur M. Blank believes that for good companies, purpose and profit can - and should - go hand in hand. And he should know. Together with cofounder Bernie Marcus, Blank built The Home Depot from an idea and a dream to a $50 billion-dollar company, the leading home improvement retailer in the world. And even while opening a new store every 42 hours, they never lost sight of their commitment to care for their people and communities.

In 2001, General Motors hired Bob Lutz out of retirement with a mandate to save the company by making great cars again. He launched a war against penny pinching, office politics, turf wars, and risk avoidance. After declaring bankruptcy during the recession of 2008, GM is back on track thanks to its embrace of Lutz's philosophy. When Lutz got into the auto business in the early sixties, CEOs knew that if you captured the public's imagination with great cars, the money would follow.

Kym Gold's mantra - "never settle for a no, always look for a yes" - is what led her to co-create True Religion Brand Jeans, a major retail clothing company that she sold for close to a billion dollars in 2013. In Gold Standard, she finally gives her side of the story of how the once fledgling jeans company that nobody wanted,went on to become a giant, revolutionizing player in the fashion industry.

During 2003, the US economy was described by one economist as "nervous, anxious, and waiting." In December, the Dow had topped 10,000 for the first time in a year and a half, and at year's end the markets were up for the first time since 1999. But in the same year, American troops had moved into Iraq, and corporate boards were cutting CEOs at the slightest signs of trouble. Amidst this turmoil Robert Greifeld, a former tech entrepreneur from outside the Wall Street bubble, became CEO of Nasdaq, a position he would hold for the next 13 years.

We are living in historic times. Not since the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s has our country been as vigorously engaged in the reconciliation conversation. There is a great opportunity right now for culture to change, to be a more perfect union. However, it cannot be done without the church, because the faith of the people is more powerful than any law government can enact.

John Spencer was a new second lieutenant in 2003 when he parachuted into Iraq leading a platoon of infantry soldiers into battle. During that combat tour he learned how important unit cohesion was to surviving a war, both physically and mentally. He observed that this cohesion developed as the soldiers experienced the horrors of combat as a group. In Connected Soldiers, Spencer delivers lessons learned about effective methods for building teams in a way that overcomes the distractions of home and the outside world, without reducing the benefits gained from connections to family.

Reimagining Blue is a passionate and personal analysis of a misunderstood profession from the vantage point of female Police Chief Kristen Ziman. Ziman credits her colorful childhood for the temperament that led her to gravitate toward policing, a profession where chaos is all in a day’s work. Many times, she learned life and leadership lessons through the revelation of what not to do. But nothing could have prepared Kristen for the turmoil that would unfold during her tenure.

Investing can be a roller-coaster of highs and lows, and the investors detailed here reveal just how low it can go; stories from Warren Buffet, Bill Ackman, Chris Sacca, Jack Bogle, Mark Twain, John Maynard Keynes, and many more illustrate the simple but overlooked concept that investing is really hard, whether you're managing a few thousand dollars or a few billion. Failures and losses are part of the game. Much more than just anecdotal diversion, these stories set the basis for the book's critical focus: learning from mistakes.

Erik Weihenmayer is the first and only blind person to summit Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Descending carefully, he and his team picked their way across deep crevasses and through the deadly Khumbu Icefall; when the mountain was finally behind him, Erik knew he was going to live. His expedition leader slapped him on the back and said something that would affect the course of Erik’s life: “Don’t make Everest the greatest thing you ever do.” No Barriers is Erik’s response to that challenge.

Unprecedented is an extraordinary business book for extraordinary times: a collection of exclusive, first-person stories on leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic from twenty-nine chief executives at Canada’s most iconic and largest companies. These are unforgettable accounts from senior leaders at companies on the front lines during the pandemic—nursing homes, grocery stores, airlines, hotels, pharmacies, shopping malls—along with valuable lessons on crisis management. At their heart, these are stories about overcoming adversity.

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to earn millions while you sit on the beach and enjoy your life? In The Unemployed Millionaire, you'll learn why it's no longer a pipe dream but a real possibility. The lowering of trade barriers and the emergence of the Internet have made it possible for almost anyone to set up a business from anywhere.