Essential: How Distributed Teams, Generative Ai, and Global Shifts Are Creating a New Human-Powered Leadership - Hardcover

by Christie Smith (Author), Kelly Monahan (Author)

Discover and embrace the future of human-powered leadership

In an era where the foundational elements of business are being disrupted, Essential: How Distributed Teams, Generative AI, and Global Shifts are Creating a New Human-Powered Leadership emerges as a crucial guide for leaders navigating the profound changes reshaping industries and markets worldwide. This book, penned by a team of seasoned business and leadership strategists, offers a radical and necessary perspective on management transformation, emphasizing the importance of human-centered leadership in meeting the full potential of the technology age.

The authors explain how to:

• Unlock radical management transformation, demonstrating how to lead with humanity at the forefront, addressing changing attitudes about labor, management, and organizational goals in a way that fosters growth and innovation
• Adapt to the new business landscape, leveraging insights about managing distributed teams and incorporating emerging technologies like generative AI without losing the essence of your organization's talent and skills
• Achieve immediate, impactful change with realistic strategies and actionable techniques backed by thousands of hours of original research and practical experience
• Improve the way we live by revolutionizing the way we work

Essential is not just a book; it's a roadmap for 21st-century leaders facing existential challenges in a rapidly evolving global market. Perfect for managers, executives, directors, founders, entrepreneurs, and any business leader aiming to steer their organization towards success in a transformed landscape, this book provides the tools and insights needed to lead with conviction and humanity.

Whether you're looking to redefine your leadership approach, adapt to the transformed market, or leave a lasting legacy, this book offers a compelling case for why now is the time for a leadership reinvention. Dive into this essential resource and begin your journey towards leading with greater impact and humanity in the business world of today and tomorrow.

Front Jacket

That business is being foundationally disrupted is not a secret to any executive paying attention. Industries and markets across the globe are being radically reshaped in the face of changing attitudes about labor, management, appropriate organizational goals, and more. And yet many leaders don't know where to begin to address the myriad existential challenges these shifts represent.

In Essential: How Distributed Teams, Generative AI, and Global Shifts Are Creating a New Human-Powered Leadership, a team of veteran business and leadership strategists delivers a startlingly insightful and compelling case for an increasingly necessary and radical transformation of management. The book offers a practical and actionable agenda for human-powered business and explains the true drivers of business change, why leaders must reinvent themselves, and how you can leave an enduring legacy at your company and in the world.

You'll learn what it means to be an effective leader in the contemporary business environment and how to adapt to an utterly transformed market. You'll also discover how to manage distributed teams and how to incorporate new technologies, like generative artificial intelligence, without disrupting the delicate balance of talents and skills that defines your organization.

Essential provides you with realistic and achievable strategies you can implement immediately to achieve measurable results, along with a toolkit of effective techniques derived from thousands of hours of original research, practical experience, and decades of working directly with leaders across industries and countries.

Perfect for managers, executives, directors, founders, entrepreneurs, and other business leaders, Essential is a timely resource for aspiring and practicing company and team leaders who aim to guide their followers and their firms through a transformed landscape.

Back Jacket

Praise for ESSENTIAL

"A timely resource for giving people steady footing in an increasingly turbulent world. Drawing on rich experience and relevant data, Christie Smith and Kelly Monahan offer actionable advice for leaders to bring out the best in their teams."
--ADAM GRANT, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential and Think Again, and host of the podcast WorkLife

"A must-read for anyone who wants to learn how to lead and manage effectively in an increasingly complex and disrupted workplace. This is the right time for this book--one that will challenge you to think differently, act differently, and lead differently."
--BETH FORD, CEO, Land O'Lakes

"The world is in need of the kind of leadership Smith and Monahan outline in Essential--courageous leadership that believes vehemently in human potential and knows the success that follows when people come before profit."
--ALICIN WILLIAMSON, Chief Diversity and Culture Officer, Yahoo!

"Smith and Monahan's concept of the 'emotionally mature leader' in Essential resonates deeply. We urgently need leaders who understand how to place the human individual at the center of all we do."
--MARCUS BUCKINGHAM, New York Times bestselling author and Human Performance Researcher

"In the midst of unprecedented change, leaders are faced with more uncertainty than ever. Essential provides actionable insights and a roadmap to reengage and empower our most vital resource: people."
--MIKE WIRTH, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Chevron

Author Biography

CHRISTIE SMITH, PHD, is the founder of The Humanity Studio, a human intelligence company dedicated to transforming workplaces and communities. She is the former global lead of Talent & Organization at Accenture, the former Vice President for Inclusion and Diversity at Apple, and the former Managing Partner of the West Region of the U.S. at Deloitte. She is a sought-after speaker and advisor for boards, CEOs, and C-suite leaders on growth, governance, talent, operating models, and organizational design.

KELLY MONAHAN, PHD, is a Managing Director at Upwork. She leads the organization's future of work research program and leads the Upwork Research Institute. Her research has been published in the MIT Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review, and the Journal of Strategic Management. She is the author of How Behavioral Economics Influences Management Decision-Making: A New Paradigm.