New — from Kent E. Frese, Ph.D.

The Achieving Leader

Getting Extraordinary Results Through the People You Lead

By Kent E. Frese, Ph.D.

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Available now in Kindle and paperback.

Your results don’t come from you. They come through your people.

Most leadership advice is about you — your habits, your drive, your willpower. This book is about what actually moves the needle: what happens between you and the people you lead. It’s drawn from assessments completed by more than 3,600 working leaders — not famous CEOs, but the people who run things in small and mid-sized companies, where you know everyone’s name and can’t hide behind three layers of management.

It lays out the seven elements that separate leaders who get extraordinary results from those who stay stuck — starting with what you believe about people, running through five everyday practices, and ending in the leadership style it all produces. Every chapter shows you what good looks like, helps you locate yourself honestly, and names the one move that turns belief in your people into results you can measure.

What you’ll be able to do

• Hand over real authority — delegate the decision, not just the legwork (the part most leaders get wrong).
• Motivate so it lasts — build the conditions where motivation grows, beyond perks and pep talks.
• Hear the whole truth — create the habits that make people bring you their best thinking, not the safe version.
• Read and adapt your style — know how you actually lead, and flex it to what the moment needs.
• Close the gap that’s costing you — see where your view of yourself and your team’s view of you diverge.

The seven elements

Leadership Philosophy · Communication & Insight · Employee Involvement · Motivation & Engagement · Empowerment & Delegation · Adaptive Leadership · Leadership Style.

About the author

Kent E. Frese, Ph.D., is an organizational psychologist who has spent his career measuring what actually makes leaders effective. The seven elements in this book come from assessments of more than 3,600 working leaders. The result is short, honest, and built to be used, not shelved.