THIS MONTH’S PAGE-TURNERS ON BUSINESS AND BEYOND

What distinguishes the best CEOs from the rest? In March 2022, McKinsey senior partners Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra set out to answer that question in CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest (Scribner/Simon & Schuster, 2022). The book, which examined more than two decades of data on 7,800 CEOs in 70 countries, became an international business bestseller. Recently, the authors chatted with McKinsey Global Publishing leader Raju Narisetti to revisit the mindsets that have helped CEOs and aspiring leaders deliver impact. Check out the first and second installments of this discussion. Read more on the third installment below.

In this edition of Readers & Leaders, enhance your leadership skills and learn ways to set the direction of your team. Dewar, Keller, and Malhotra revisit the leadership lessons of the most successful CEOs, and Grace Puma shares how women can shatter the glass ceiling, despite only occupying 28 percent of C-suite positions. Philip Kotler and Giuseppe Stigliano present a new direction to help retailers meet the needs of consumers in the post-digital age, Chris Dixon outlines a vision for a decentralized internet that could inspire a new direction for innovation and growth, and Charles Duhigg explains the role that improved communication plays in relationship building.

Read on to find out more about how you can change your approach to leadership and inspire others to align with your vision.

STAY TUNED

“There’s a body of thinking here that can be a handbook, that’s grounded in facts, that’s grounded in experience, that everyone should feel confident drawing from. Someone reading [CEO Excellence] can get the wisdom from all of those voices in one place.”

—Carolyn Dewar, McKinsey senior partner, in the third and final installment of CEO Excellence revisited, coming in April.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

TURN BACK THE PAGE

Are you looking to fine-tune your leadership skills? Get started with these Author Talks interviews:

1. IBM’s Ginni Rometty on leading with ‘good power’
2. Ron Shaich shares leadership lessons on what matters most and why
3. How people-first leadership can make the sky the limit
4. Moshik Temkin on power, purpose, and the public good

As Women’s History Month comes to a close, read these interviews with women leaders:

1. Suzanne Heywood rides the waves of resilience
2. Dr. Fei-Fei Li sees ‘worlds’ of possibilities in a multidisciplinary approach to AI
3. Lisa Sun explains why confidence is your superpower
4. Netta Jenkins asks, ‘Is there a seat at the table?’

BUSINESS BESTSELLERS TOP

8

Need more books to add to your reading list? Explore February’s business bestsellers, prepared exclusively for McKinsey by Circana. Check out the full selection on McKinsey on Books.

BUSINESS OVERALL

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way To Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (Penguin Group USA)

BUSINESS HARDCOVER

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way To Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (Penguin Group USA)

ECONOMICS

Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis (Random House)

DECISION MAKING

Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell (Hachette Book Group)

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way To Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (Penguin Group USA)

WORKPLACE CULTURE

Never not working: Why the Always-on Culture Is Bad for business—and How to fix it by Malissa Clark (Two Rivers Distribution)

COMPUTERS & AI

The Year in Tech, 2024: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review by Harvard Business Review (Two Rivers Distribution)

SUSTAINABILITY

Venture Meets Mission: Aligning People, Purpose, and Profit to Innovate and Transform Society by Arun Gupta, Gerard George, and Thomas J. Fewer
(Two Rivers Distribution)

If you’d like to propose a book or author for #McKAuthorTalks, please email us at Author_Talks@McKinsey.com. Due to the high volume of requests, we will respond only to those being considered.

—Edited by Emily Adeyanju, editor, Charlotte

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