What makes a great leader?

It's a question that has been tackled by thousands. In fact, there are literally tens of thousands of leadership studies, theories, frameworks, models, and recommended best practices. But where are the clear, simple answers we need for our daily work lives? Are there any?

Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood, and Kate Sweetman set out to answer these questions--to crack the code of leadership. Drawing on decades of research experience, the authors conducted extensive interviews with a variety of respected CEOs, academics, experienced executives, and seasoned consultants--and heard the same five essentials repeated again and again. These five rules became The Leadership Code.

In The Leadership Code, the authors break down great leadership into day-to-day actions, so that you know what to do Monday morning. Crack the leadership code--and take your leadership to the next level.

The next step in HR's creation of value--turning the war for talent into victory through organization

HR is not about HR. HR begins and ends with the business.

The RBL Group and the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan have shaped much of the HR profession for 30 years through the Human Resource Competency Study (HRCS). With this latest (7th) round of research, Dave Ulrich, David Kryscynski, Mike Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank call for us to pivot from fighting the war for talent--to creating victory through organization.

Sure to be an HR classic, Victory Through Organization provides the rationale for shifting your focus from how to help individuals prosper to the organization. Filled with fact-based insights and field-tested strategies, it demonstrates that organizational success isn't just about the talent you have--it's about how the collective organization makes the individual talent better. To this end, HR professionals and business leaders will learn:

- How they can ensure that organization creates greater value than the sum of individual talent parts.
- How to create more integrated HR solutions for business results across multiple stakeholders
- How HR departments can better create a comprehensive information advantage
- How HR professions can master the competencies that have greatest impact on their personal effectiveness, key inside and outside stakeholders, and business results

Victory Through Organization offers tools business leaders and HR professionals need to better respond to emerging opportunities, and it provides expert advice for building HR departments to deliver measurable business value. You will learn how to build organization capabilities, strengthen systems, and empower human capital--for longer lasting success.

Building and retaining a solid, talented workforce is a great thing. Creating the competitive organization that wins is even more important for business results.

How to use intangibles to increase the value of your business

Originally published under the title Why the Bottom Line Isn't, this revised and updated edition shows business leaders how to build long-term value through assets not accounted for on the company's financial statements. Through leadership, service, corporate culture, and the ability to attract top talent, businesses can create real, measurable value that goes beyond simple bottom-line numbers.

Based on research drawn from human resources, finance, IT, and leadership, How Leaders Build Value offers ideas and actions that leaders at any level, in any function, can use to increase their organization's overall value. Every chapter presents an intangible asset as a concept, then provides examples and tools that help leaders develop the asset and communicate its value to shareholders, employees, and other parties.

No matter what kind of organization you operate, remarkable things happen when you build value through intangibles. Employees will be more committed, customers and investors more engaged, confident, and numerous. For those who want to impact the long-term value of their organizations, How Leaders Build Value is a straightforward and practical guide.

A captivating mix of ideas, analysis, and real-world examples. [Ulrich and Smallwood] offer real insight into what works, what doesn't work, and why.
-Rick Wagoner, CEO, General Motors

The concepts and tools in this book are a timely gift to leaders who are ready to see the whole picture.
-Frances Hesselbein, Chairman, The Leader to Leader Institute

It's refreshing to see that business success does not in fact begin and end at the bottom line. . . . In very clear terms, Ulrich and Smallwood provide business advice that can easily be applied to effect change.
-Don Hall Jr., CEO, Hallmark

HR thought leader Dave Ulrich -- bestsellingauthor of HR Champions, The Why of Work, HR from the Outside In, and more--is back with his international colleagues to unpack and distill the finest, most up-to-the-moment thinking from the HR world. Indeed, this book looks at best practices from companies on every continent, offering an expert survey of universal andregional HR dos and don'ts.

Because new and developing global circumstances often require adaptability and changes in best practices, Global HR Competencies documents the decisionandpolicymaking of some of the world's foremost, leading-edge HR practitioners. Together with his team of researchers, Ulrich has broken down all there is to know about best HR practices around the world--and how they might take shape in the future. Global HR Competencies will teach you:

• The guiding principles that HR's next generations can't afford to be without
• How HR professionals integrate across all levels of business life in each major region of the world
• HR's impact on short-term individual and business performance, and how it can have sustainable impact oncustomers and society as a whole
• How to best employ, develop, and make the most of HR professionals, giving you and your organization themaximum advantage -- wherever you are in the world

Advance Praise for Global HR Competencies

An invaluable resource for crafting sustainable organizations in a world of fast-moving technological change and innovation. -- Paul Norman, Chief Human Resources & Corporate Affairs, MTN Group (Africa)

[Global HR Competencies] brings important research to life with the injection of regional context and local knowledge, turning the findings into lessons for the profession globally. -- Peter Wilson, National President, Australian Human Resources Institute (Australia)

Provides both the gold standard in global HR competencies, as well as a compelling overview of how these competencies apply to China. Outstanding! -- Bo Lianming, President, TCL Corporation (China)

An invaluable guide to boosting the understanding of the nuanced role the HR function plays in different markets. . . . Highly informative. -- William S. Allen, Group Senior Vice President, Group HR, A.P. M ller - M rsk (Europe)

An excellent research-based account of how contemporary HR practices are helping corporations across the world excel and globalize. . . . A must-read for CEOs and HR professionals alike. -- Adi Godrej, Chairman, Godrej Group, and President, Confederation of Indian Industry (India)

Should be read by any HR professional who has a true interest in the standards of excellence of the HR function in each region. -- Eduardo Villar, HR VP, Hochschild Mining (Latin America)

Will greatly assist any company achieve its strategic goals and objectives. -- Khalid S. Al-Mudaifer, President & CEO, Ma'aden Saudi Arabian Mining Co. (Middle East)

This is a must-read for any leader who is responsible for managing global businesses. -- Dennis W. Shuler, Chief HR Officer and Senior Vice President, The Kellogg Company (North America)

A must-read for HR professionals. -- Murat Ulker, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Yildiz Holding (Turkey)

Your company's brands hold intangible value and differentiate your firm from rivals. So does your leadership brand--a shared identity among your organization's leaders that differentiates what they can do from what your rivals' leaders can do. In Leadership Brand, Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood show how branded leadership delivers unique value for firms' investors, customers, and employees--elevating market value and creating a sharp competitive edge. The authors present a six-step process for creating leadership brand in your organization. A wealth of tools helps you differentiate your firm's leaders from those of rivals, craft a unified identity among them, and articulate a unique statement of your brand. Additional chapters and tools show you how to assess and measure your leadership brand, where to invest in the brand, which practices instill the brand, and how to communicate the brand to your many stakeholders. With its compelling new model and hands-on approach, this book helps you clarify what makes your leaders unique--and use your leadership brand to leave rivals far behind.

MAKE YOUR LEADERSHIP EFFORTS STICK

Every day, thousands of people put great effort--and money--into becoming more effective leaders, through seminars, personal coaching, and employee development plans. These undertakings can do wonders to help leaders of all stripes improve their effectiveness. But not every leader finishes what he or she starts--and many revert back to less effective habits, often without even realizing it.

How can you ensure that you stick with all the positive changes you have made? How do you make sure you don't slip back into your old ways?

Answer: Leadership Sustainability

Dave Ulrich--the man BusinessWeek referred to as the #1 Management Educator and Guru--teams up with leadership expert Norm Smallwood to go where no leadership guide has gone. This dream team provides sophisticated, proven leadership sustainability ideas and tools that you can put to use immediately.

Leadership Sustainability helps you turn good intentions into effective actions by mastering seven critical disciplines:

• Simplicity: Focus on the few key behaviors that will have the most impact.
• Time: Allocate your time so your calendar matches your intentions.
• Accountability: Take personal responsibility for doing what you say you will do.
• Resources: Support your leadership with effective, ongoing coaching and HR systems.
• Tracking: Develop metrics for measuring your leadership improvement.
• Melioration: Learn from your mistakes and demonstrate resilience.
• Emotion: Draw on deep personal values to keep yourself motivated.

The journey to great leadership doesn't end with learning and implementing effective new skills. Great leadership is about consistency, and the drive for consistency is a never-ending process. Use Leadership Sustainability to ensure leadership greatness today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life.

PRAISE FOR LEADERSHIP SUSTAINABILITY: Dave and Norm propose a practical approach to solving the problem of leaders turning what they intend into what they do. The seven principles provide a simple and practical way to get things done. -- Ram Charan, coauthor of the New York Times bestselling Execution

Dave and Norm do a great job about teaching leaders not just what to do, but how to make sure that they do it. The ideas in the book are insightful, specific, and actionable. -- Gina Qiao, SVP Human Resources, Lenovo

Finally, a 'how-to' book that is grounded in the real-world dynamics of leading organizations! -- Dixon Thayer, CEO, HealthNEXT

Dave and Norm provide both an in-depth understanding of why we often fall short and a set of tools for getting on with it. -- Morgan W. McCall, Jr., Professor, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, and author of High Flyer

Leaders all over the world will celebrate Dave and Norm's powerful new gift: the concept of Leadership Sustainability and its seven disciplines. -- Frances Hesselbein, President and CEO, The Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute

Finally, we have two scholar-practitioners who correctly address evidence that one of every two leaders fails and offer solutions about proper execution that leads to sustainability. -- W. Warner Burke, Professor of Psychology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

Dave and Norm understand that one of the keys to success is disciplined continuity and sustainability--which constitute a required core competency among leadership. -- Kathleen Wilson-Thompson, Chief Human Resources Officer, Walgreen Co.

When it comes to evaluating a firm, leadership matters.

We know that financial outcomes can predict about 50 percent of a firm's market value. Intangibles like strategy, brand, talent, R&D, innovation, risk, and so on account for the rest. But leadership underlies them all. And despite how important we know it is, we've been forced to rely on subjective and unreliable ways to measure its impact--until now.

In this landmark book, leadership scholar, author, and consultant Dave Ulrich proposes a leadership capital index--a Moody's or Standard and Poor's rating for leadership. Drawing on research from investors and business leaders, and synthesizing the work of dozens of consulting firms and leadership experts, Ulrich analyzes two broad domains, each comprising five factors. The individual domain includes personal qualities, strategic prowess, execution proficiency, interpersonal skills, and fit between the leader's style and the organization's market promises. The organizational domain encompasses a leader's ability to create customer-focused cultures, manage talent, demand accountability, use information to gain competitive advantage, and set up work processes to deal with change.

Ulrich details rigorous metrics and methods for evaluating leaders on each of these factors. The result is a groundbreaking book that will be of vital interest not only to equity and debt investors but also to boards of directors, executive teams, human resource and leadership development professionals, government and ratings agencies--and of course to leaders themselves.

The business community is waking up to the fact that in today's turbulent and competitive marketplace, a company's marketing, technological or financial edge can be won or lost overnight. Survival is dependent on managing the competitive capability of all its employees. This book shows why and how the most effective way to compete is from the inside out, with employees aware of market demands, a commitment to company success and connecting what is done inside a company with the needs of customers and suppliers.