Harper Business Omnibus: What the CEO Really Wants from You; Mid-Career Crisis

Expert advice is crucial to building a successful career. And who better than business leaders R. Gopalakrishnan and Partha S. Basu to speak on how to navigate the complex and tricky corporate world. Valuable lessons in business and people management from two of the most respected names in the business. What the CEO Really Wants from You: There are many books on leadership and how to lead. What the CEO Really Wants from You addresses the one key question that is uppermost in the mind of any manager: What should he or she do to make the boss a partner rather than perceive the boss as an extractor of work or an adversary? As Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, points out in his foreword, partnerships with others, but above all, with your direct boss and organization, are more important than ever before. Few people are so well qualified as R. Gopalakrishnan to guide us on this journey. This is a book that will be of immense value to all managers, and one that just might evoke pragmatic answers to the question of what the CEO really expects from the team. Mid-Career Crisis: Remember your placement season? There might have been friends you graduated with. You got more or less the same marks, and joined the same organization as trainees. Now, mid-career, you wonder why some of them have powered ahead while the rest are stuck with old responsibilities and designations. You cannot understand what it is that those who continue to grow are doing differently, what it is that helps them reach the top while others fall behind. Superior knowledge, sharper skills, or just sheer luck? Our mid-career is characterized by several questions that start bothering us: Should we stay put and grow, or quit and move to a better-paying, bigger profile? Are we leaders or followers? Should we continue drawing salaries or build our dream start-ups? Shaken by confusion, the self-confidence of our early years changes into misery-and, eventually, a crisis.