The First 90 Days, Updated and Expanded

Every organization has its share of political drama: Personalities clash. Agendas compete. Turf wars erupt. But you need to work productively with your colleagues - even difficult ones - for the good of your organization and your career. How can you do that without compromising your personal values? By acknowledging that power dynamics and unwritten rules exist - and navigating them constructively.

If you listen to nothing else on leadership, you should at least hear these 10 articles (featuring "What Makes an Effective Executive", by Peter F. Drucker). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on leadership and selected the most important ones to help you maximize your own and your organization's performance.

Managing people is fraught with challenges - even if you're a seasoned manager. Here's how to handle them. If you listen to nothing else on managing people, you should at least hear these 10 articles.

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 questions, your boss's last-minute assignment of an important presentation, or a blank business case staring you in the face. To reach your full potential in these situations, you need to master a new set of business and personal skills.

For nine years, Rajat Gupta led McKinsey & Co. - the first foreign-born person to head the world’s most influential management consultancy. He was also the driving force behind major initiatives such as the Indian School of Business and the Public Health Foundation of India. A globally respected figure, he sat on the boards of distinguished philanthropic institutions such as the Gates Foundation and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and corporations including Goldman Sachs, American Airlines, and Procter & Gamble.

In Michael Bungay Stanier's The Coaching Habit, coaching becomes a regular, informal part of your day so managers and their teams can work less hard and have more impact. Drawing on years of experience training more than 10,000 busy managers from around the globe in practical, everyday coaching skills, Bungay Stanier reveals how to unlock your peoples' potential. He unpacks seven essential coaching questions to demonstrate how - by saying less and asking more - you can develop coaching methods that produce great results.

If you listen to nothing else on becoming a new manager, listen to these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you transition from being an outstanding individual contributor to a great manager of others.

This book will inspire you to: thrive on pressure like an Olympic athlete; manage and overcome negative emotions by acknowledging them; plan short-term goals to achieve long-term aspirations; surround yourself with the people who will push you the hardest; use challenges to become a better leader; use creativity to move past trauma; and understand the tools your mind uses to recover from setbacks. 

Measure What Matters is a revolutionary approach to business that has been adopted by some of Silicon Valley's most successful start-ups. It is a movement that is behind the explosive growth of Intel, Google, Amazon and Uber and many more. Measure What Matters is about using Objectives and Key Results (or OKRs) to make tough choices on business priorities. It's about communicating these objectives throughout the company from entry level to CEO, and it's about collecting timely, relevant data to track progress - to measure what matters.   

If you listen to nothing else on decision making, you should at least hear these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you and your organization make better choices and avoid common traps.

The path to your professional success starts with a critical look in the mirror. If you listen to nothing else on managing yourself, you should at least hear these 10 articles (plus the bonus article "How Will You Measure Your Life?" by Clayton M. Christensen). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles to select the most important ones to help you maximize yourself.

In his defining work on emotional intelligence, best-selling author Daniel Goleman found that it is twice as important as other competencies in determining outstanding leadership. If you listen to nothing else on emotional intelligence, listen to these 10 articles by experts in the field. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you boost your emotional skills - and your professional success.

Influence, the classic book on persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say yes - and how to apply these understandings. Dr. Robert Cialdini is the seminal expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion. His 35 years of rigorous, evidence-based research, along with a three-year program of study on what moves people to change behavior, has resulted in this highly acclaimed book. You'll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader - and how to defend yourself against them.

Companies need high potential leaders (Hi-Pos) more than ever before to help them adapt to today's tumultuous, digitally-driven business environment. If you meet the Hi-Po criteria, you're in high demand - and this book explains how to fast-track yourself.

In Your Next Move, leadership-transition guru Michael Watkins shows how you can survive and thrive in all the major transitions you will face during your career, including promotion, on-boarding into a new organization, and making an international move. With real-life examples and case studies, he illustrates the defining hurdles associated with each type of transition.