The Harvard Business Review Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

by Ron Ashkenas

Put aside all the overhyped new frameworks, the listicles, the "10 best things you need to succeed as a leader today". The critical leadership practices - the ones that will allow a leader to make the biggest impact over time - are well established. They're about how you create a vision and inspire others to follow it. How you make difficult strategic choices. How you lead innovation. How you get results.

In this comprehensive handbook, strategy and change experts Ron Ashkenas and Brook Manville distill proven ideas and frameworks about leadership from Harvard Business Review, interviews with senior executives, and their own experience in the field - all to help rising leaders stand out and have a big impact.

In The Harvard Business Review Leader's Handbook, you'll find concise explanations of proven leadership frameworks from Harvard Business Review contributors, such as Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Porter; in-depth case studies of senior leaders, such as Jim Wolfensohn at the World Bank, Paula Kerger at PBS, Darren Walker at the Ford Foundation, and Jim Smith at Thomson Reuters; and step-by-step guidance to help you understand and start implementing six core leadership building a unifying vision, developing a strategy, getting great people on board, focusing on results, innovating for the future, and leading yourself.

PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Genres: Leadership, Business, Management, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Self Help, Entrepreneurship

Audible Audio

Published December 8, 2020

About the author

Internationally recognized consultant and speaker on organizational transformation, post-merger integration, and simplification

Reviews

[Anusha Narasimhan]

Very insightful book with ideas that can be put into practice. Highly recommended for everyone interested in leadership positions.

Note - I received a free digital copy of the book from the publisher. This has not influenced my review in any way.

[asih simanis]

This was a pain to read, so slow, meticulous and without a glimpse of fun. It’s basically a text-book on leadership that we are supposed to go back to when we want to know what to do. But, who does that?

I started reading this book, because I wanted to learn how to be a better leader, as my career goes more into (self-imposed) leadership roles. But I did not find what I needed in this book, a moving writing to help me start my journey. This book was more for executives who wanted to get a summary of step.

I guess when it come to leadership books it’s actually more engaging, motivating, inspiring, to read it directly from the leaders themselves, rather than from a summary of practices. Or, the usual business/leadership books from the popular gurus are actually simply just more interesting. This book on the other hand was just very plain language, without any of the heart or zest of leadership. It’s an academic report.

I would only recommend this book to people with enough willpower to learn theoretical steps of leadership, without any of the fun.

This definitely made me change my mind of the Harvard Business Review quality control. I won’t be investing in that many books by them anymore.

[Priyanshi Mathur]

Great book. Straightforward, handy advice on behaviours needed to establish an executive presence, working in high visibility leadership roles. Full of rich insights, detailed examples, and useful frameworks.

[Karol Gaida]

A great book for leaders, explaining how to develop your vision and the strategy that will get you to this vision. Also, it will teach you how to build a strong team and how to make people work effectively.

[Darya]

Interesting view on the theory of leadership. I believe this book is a very good theoretical basis. Strong content as it is usually provided by Harvard Business Books. Recommend the interviews with senior executives as so much information is being covered through them. Practical business aspects are always good. The frameworks provided are working ones. I have put one in practice already.

[Greg]

I would say that this is one of the most insightful, most helpful, and most practical leadership books I’ve read in years. Not only that it provides meaningful perspective about leadership, it also illustrates a high level view on how executives particularly CEOs can lead their respective organizations.

The book revolves around 6 leadership practices that leaders from all levels should pay attention to: building a unifying vision, developing a strategy, getting great people on board, focusing on results, innovating for the future, and leading oneself. This is really a helpful framework even for me who is aiming to lead an organization someday. It will help me to guide myself as to what practices should I need to improve. It will also serve as a constant reminder of what is important in terms of leading an organization.

I’ve read several leadership books; many of them focusing on how to lead with charisma, some of them on how to communicate vision, while others on how to inspire others. This book does all of those and more. Because of this book I now understand that leaders should also look at the innovation within. This is one of key drivers of competitive edge in different markets nowadays.

More importantly, not all leadership books will discuss on how leaders can take care of themselves. Many books will help you on how to serve others but this book balance the scale by putting emphasis on leaders giving back to themselves.

Truly wonderful and fascinating read, this book is recommended to those who are leading organizations on every level.

[Denis Reads]

Great summary of multiple HBR articles related to leaders career pathway and job. But there is one problem.

I feel this book is just for those like me, who have clear understanding that being in the leadership role is their unavoidable future, however, from current POV we are not completely sure about understanding of all required duties and moves that senior level managers and business owners should do.

However, if you are already at that position this book should make no any sense for you. Otherwise I have no idea how you got promo to your role.

Read this just to double check boss duties, and if you on the right track and pace you will find nothing new here.

[Cris]

Insightful book, well structured, explains how leaders approach their roles in 6 lead practices. Each practice is defined, described and a practical example is given. I see it as a fundamental book for an organized approach to leadership, on which one can add their personal touch.

I see the learnings so powerful and applicable for any role within an organization.

A lot of learnings described in this book I discovered in my career but I wished I found this book earlier. There were also many insights which made me pause, think and reflect on my role.

Honestly, the insights from this book should have been discussed in the university…

[Ivonne Vargas]

This book is full of tips and examples of how to become a great leader. It really explains the different between being a manager and a leader and how to make people follow your lead and not only follow your rules. In order to really apply the lessons, I recommend you to read it several times and/or read a specific chapter again when you want to apply the learnings.

[Mark Williams]

I really enjoyed how practical this book is. It does not try to overwhelm you with complicated leadership theories. Instead, it focuses on the things leaders actually need to do, from creating a clear vision to making decisions and getting results. The examples also make the ideas much easier to understand.

[Allison Brown]

This is a comprehensive look at what it takes to lead effectively. I particularly appreciated the emphasis on leading yourself because it is easy to focus on managing everyone else while overlooking your own habits and decision making. There are several lessons here that I will continue thinking about.

[Collins]

This is the kind of book I can see myself returning to more than once. The six leadership practices provide a useful structure for thinking about what effective leadership really involves. I especially liked the sections on strategy, people, and leading yourself.

[Victor]

A very helpful book for anyone who is moving into a leadership position or trying to become a better leader. The advice feels grounded in real experience rather than being based on whatever leadership trend happens to be popular. The case studies add a lot of value.

[Marvellous]

One of my favorite things about this book is how clearly it presents its ideas. Leadership can easily become buried under jargon and endless frameworks, but this book keeps coming back to practical fundamentals. I found many of the ideas immediately applicable to everyday work

[Allison]

The real world examples were probably my favorite part of the book. They show how leadership principles actually play out in complicated organizations. It was interesting seeing how different leaders approached vision, strategy, innovation, and getting people aligned.

[Williams Edison]

This book is a good reminder that effective leadership is not necessarily about finding the newest management technique. The fundamentals still matter. Building trust, creating direction, making good decisions, developing people, and delivering results are all covered in a straightforward way.

[Mary]

I expected this to be mainly for new leaders, but I found plenty of value in it as someone with some management experience. Some of the concepts are familiar, but the way they are organized made me reconsider how I approach certain leadership situations.

[Mary Palmer]

The book strikes a nice balance between established leadership concepts and practical examples. You get enough explanation to understand why something matters, but it does not spend the entire book buried in theory. That made it enjoyable and useful at the same time

[Cristie Underwood]

Honest and in-depth advice for reaching your full potential. This advice is presented in easy to follow language that can be broken up and applied in pieces at a time.

[Matthew McCreight]

Excellent -- essential reading for any leader or aspiring leader

[Alexander Iskuskov]

6/10

[Michał Maciejczyk]

Decent content, presented in very dry manner.
I could recommend it, but only for the first two chapters.

[Abhi]

1.5 stars. On the fine line between bad and ok. Like a purgatory for books. Some useful tips (reminders), but nothing new.

[Usama Albastaki]

Rating 5 it is a real manual for leaders. I am definitely going to read it again before making another review.

[Juan Castro]

Leaders need to focus on six basic practices over the course of their careers in order to be successful: (1) creating a unifying vision, (2) developing a strategy to achieve the vision, (3) getting great people on board to execute the strategy, (4) driving for results, (5) innovating for the future, and (6) leading yourself to be the best leader you can be.

[Łukasz Wilewski]

Go for it, every leader or future manager need to learn some facts about it

[Annarella]

A very interesting and useful book about leadership. It's one the best I read and it helps to understand how leadership works and how to improve it.
I would like to stress the usefulness of this book as it gives a framework for understanding the practices every leader should follow.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to Harvard Business Review and Netgalley for this ARC

[Davide]

This leadership book is well divided in six main chapter (Building a Unifying Vision, Developing a Strategy, Getting Great People on Board, Focusing on Results, Innovating for the Future, Leading Yourself).
Each chapter contains theory, examples, several in-depth information boxes (e.g. "Exploring make-or-buy and acquisition options" in the "Developing a Strategy" chapter) and "Questions to consider" to recap the content of the related chapter.

I received a copy of the book as Netgalley reviewer.