Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win [Paperback]

Today’s best leaders know how to lead up, a necessary strategy when a supervisor is micromanaging rather than macrothinking, when a division president offers clear directives but can’t see the future, or when investors demand instant gain but need long-term growth. Through vivid, compelling stories, Michael Useem reveals how upward leadership can transform incipient disaster into hard-won triumph. For example, U.S. Marine Corps General Peter Pace reconciled the conflicting priorities of six bosses by keeping them well informed and challenging their instructions when necessary. Useem also explores what happens when those who should step forward fail to do so—Mount Everest mountaineers might have saved themselves from disaster during a fateful ascent if only they had questioned their guides’ flawed decisions.

Leading Upis a call to action. It asks us to get results by helping our superiors lead and by building on the best in everybody’s nature, and it offers a pragmatic blueprint for doing so. “Often the best coaching a leader can receive is directly from the team he/she leads. Openness to their feedback is critical, and Professor Useem’s new book provides many dramatic examples of successes and failures in this important dimension.”
—Arthur Martinez, former chief executive officer of Sears, Roebuck & Co.

“Teaching your boss is the most important thing that anyone in business, government, or the nonprofit world needs to know.Leading Upis a must-read for everyone.”
—Leonard A. Lauder, chairman, the Estée Lauder Companies, Inc.

“Professor Michael Useem has shown himself a master in the use of vignettes to teach us about leadership. In his latest book,Leading Up, he has again used reality, this time to discuss ‘those who would dare to lead their leaders.’ In today’s fast-moving and often chaotic world, this book is a musl³Q