Among the tests of a leader, few are more challenging and more painful than recovering from a career catastrophe. Most fallen leaders, in fact, don't recover. Still, two decades of consulting experience, scholarly research, and their own personal experiences have convinced the authors that leaders can triumph over tragedy if they do so deliberately.

When some managers take over a new job, they hit the ground running. They learn the ropes, get along with their bosses and subordinates, gain credibility, and ultimately master the situation. Others, however, don't do so well. What accounts for the difference? In this article, first published in 1985, Harvard Business School professor John J. Gabarro relates the findings of two sets of field studies he conducted, covering 14 management successions.

Even for the most gifted individuals, the process of becoming a leader is an arduous, albeit rewarding, journey of continuous learning and self-development. The initial test along the path is so fundamental that we often overlook it: becoming a boss for the first time. That's a shame, because the trials involved in this rite of passage have serious consequences for both the individual and the organization. For a decade and a half, the author has studied people making major career transitions to management.

Businesses hoping to survive over the long term will have to remake themselves into better competitors at least once along the way. These efforts have gone under many banners: total quality management, reengineering, rightsizing, restructuring, cultural change, and turnarounds, to name a few. In almost every case, the goal has been to cope with a new, more challenging market by changing the way business is conducted. A few of these endeavors have been very successful.

In the game of life, specifically in office politics, you can think as you like. But behave in a different manner than others, and you will be an outcast in a short period of time. Learn the most efficient rules of office politics so that you can enjoy an explosive career and life only those who know these rules can enjoy! Ignore the laws in this audiobook at your own risk! You've been warned! 

When corporate leaders or the organizations they represent mess up, they face the difficult decision of whether to apologize publicly. A public apology is a risky move. It's highly political, and every word matters. Refusal to apologize can be smart, or it can be suicidal. Readiness to apologize can be seen as a sign of character or one of weakness. Because the stakes are so high, Barbara Kellerman says, leaders should not extend public apologies often or lightly.

Employers can choose from lots of tools when they want to encourage employees to work together toward a new corporate goal. One of the rarest managerial skills is the ability to understand which tools will work in a given situation and which will misfire.

Sales departments tend to believe that marketers are out of touch with what's really going on in the marketplace. Marketing people, in turn, believe the sales force is myopic - too focused on individual customer experiences, insufficiently aware of the larger market, and blind to the future. In short, each group undervalues the other's contributions. Yet, few firms seem to make serious overtures toward analyzing and enhancing the relationship between these two critical functions.

If you listen to nothing else on inspiring and executing innovation, listen to 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 innovate effectively.

We've reviewed the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to keep you up-to-date on the most cutting-edge, influential thinking driving business today. With authors from Michael E. Porter to Katrina Lake and company examples from Alibaba to 3M, this volume brings the most current and important management conversations right to your fingertips.

With insights from leading experts including John Kotter and Indra Nooyi, this book will inspire you to: lead through the eight critical stages of change; create and instill a sense of urgency; transform your company's culture; get reorgs right; reshape your organization for climate sustainability; remodel the chief learning officer position to lead change; scale agile practices throughout your organization; and lead change when business is good - but also when times are tough.

Is your company spending too much time on strategy development - with too little to show for it? you listen to nothing else on strategy, you should at least hear these 10 articles.

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.

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.

Change is the one constant in business, and we must adapt or face obsolescence. Yet certain challenges never go away. That's what makes this book "must hear." These are the 10 seminal articles by management's most influential experts, on topics of perennial concern to ambitious managers and leaders hungry for inspiration - and ready to run with big ideas to accelerate their own and their companies' success.