If You're Curious About These Questions...
You should listen to this audiobook
- Did you know that the traits most leadership gurus tell you to cultivate might actually be the very things preventing you from reaching the top?
- Have you ever wondered why the 'squeaky-clean' image of successful CEOs rarely matches the cutthroat reality of how they actually gained power?
- Are you curious about why the multi-billion dollar leadership industry consistently fails to produce better leaders—and what it’s really hiding from you?
Listen to Leadership BS — Free Audiobook
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Key Takeaways from Leadership BS
- Discover why myths about flawless, heroic leaders actually prevent new leaders from succeeding by setting impossible standards.
- Understand how self-promotion, overconfidence, and even narcissism can help you command respect and steer organizations through crises.
- Learn why you should stop worrying about being completely 'authentic' and instead practice projecting confidence until it becomes natural.
- Find out why successful leaders aren't afraid to use strategic lies to achieve their goals and maintain their power.
- Gain a realistic perspective on leadership that challenges the modern assumption that you must always be empathetic and nice to reach the top.
Learning Tools
Reinforce what you learned from Leadership BS
Mind Map
Leadership BS
The Myth of the Heroic Leader
False Biographies
Value of Imperfection
Narcissism & Self-Promotion
Benefits of Arrogance
Crisis Management
The Authenticity Trap
Acting over Authenticity
Projecting Strength
The Utility of Lying
Power and Dishonesty
Managing Employees
Trust & Broken Commitments
Trust is Inessential
Corporate Double Standards
Power, Blame & Self-Interest
Self-Preservation
Shifting the Blame
The Illusion of Loyalty
No Reciprocity
Transactional Relationships
Observing Real Behavior
Actions Over Words
Predicting the Future
Quiz — Test Your Understanding
Question 1 of 8
Why does the author argue that creating flawless biographies of business leaders is detrimental?
Leadership BS — Full Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: Recommendation
Chapter 2: We’ve crafted myths about famous business leaders that greatly hinder emerging leaders’ success.
Chapter 3: Confidence and narcissism can help leaders climb to the top and remain there.
Chapter 4: Care less about authenticity and more about showing confidence and poise, even when it’s fake.
Chapter 5: Effective leaders deploy lies to achieve their goals and keep employees content.
Chapter 6: Trust is a nonessential leadership trait because agreements often must be abandoned in practice.
Chapter 7: Effective leaders prioritize holding power and deflecting blame above other considerations at times.
Chapter 8: There’s no cause for workers and employers to feel mutual loyalty anymore today.
Chapter 9: You can grasp much about leadership’s harsh truths by observing leaders’ behavior in real time closely.
Leadership BS Summary & Overview
Leadership BS (2015) looks at the dirty world of business executives to see what life’s really like at the top of the corporate ladder. What we find is something quite different than the squeaky-clean image most motivational leadership gurus and CEO biographies will try to sell you. Discover what a nasty business you’ll really have to get into if you want to become a successful leader in today’s cutthroat business world.
Who Should Listen to Leadership BS?
- Managers, bosses and anyone interested in leadership skills
- Readers interested in social science
- Students of business
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