Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed

by Adam Bryant, Oliver Wyman (Narrator)

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 70 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.

Audible Audio

Published April 12, 2011

About the author

Adam Bryant, the deputy national editor of The New York Times, has been a journalist for more than two decades. He was a business reporter for The New York Times during the 1990s, covering a variety of industries and topics, including airlines, aviation safety, executive compensation and corporate governance. He joined Newsweek in 1999 as a senior writer, and was promoted to business editor. After six years at Newsweek, he returned to the Times' as an editor in the business section, where he oversaw coverage of the collapse of the Detroit auto industry, among other stories.

Adam was the lead editor for two prize-winning series: "Driven to Distraction," about the dangers of cellphone use behind the wheel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2010, and "Toxic Waters," about water pollution, which won a number of awards, including the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award, the Investigative Reporters and Editors' Medal, the National Academies' reporting award, the investigative reporting award from the Society of Environmental Journalists, and the 2009 Science in Society Journalism Award.

In March 2009, Adam started Corner Office in the Times' Sunday Business section, and it quickly attracted a large and loyal audience for its insights about leadership and management from prominent leaders. For his book, The Corner Office, Adam studied the transcripts from more than 70 interviews, and looked for patterns, broader themes and lessons. He wove together their candid and wise insights into a book that offers timeless advice on how to succeed, manage and lead.

Adam lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife and two daughters.