Reading List: All The Leader You Can Be

Numbers seem to be important in the leadership game—10 qualities (or is it nine?) that make a great leader, 12 things you can do, or seven steps you can take. Suzanne Bates and William Macaux have a number, too: “15 qualities of executive presence.” But the important number is one, as in: “There’s no single formula for achieving extraordinary executive presence.”

Related: 3 Ways to Build Your Executive Presence

Executive presence is the authors’ term for that indefinable leadership quality that enables talented people to become highly successful. The good news is that Bates, author of the best-selling Speak Like a CEO, and Macaux, a management psychologist, have developed what they call a science-based approach that enables each person to locate his or her individual executive-presence identity. What’s more, they’ve arranged this volume as a guidebook for each stage of a rising executive career. All the Leader You Can Be is not a breezy read—at times it’s as technical as a textbook. It’s a serious book, and serious readers may well benefit.

By Suzanne Bates
March; McGraw-Hill Education; $30

This article appears in the March 2016 issue of SUCCESS magazine.