Leadership Biography

Longtime Dollar General CEO Cal Turner, Jr. shares his extraordinary life as heir to the company founded by his father Cal Turner, Sr. and his grandfather, a dirt farmer turned Depression-era entrepreneur. Cal's narrative is at its heart a father-son story, from his childhood in Scottsville, Kentucky, where business and family were one, to the triumph of reaching the Fortune 300 - at the cost of risking that very father/son relationship. Cal shares how the small-town values with which he was raised helped him guide Dollar General from family enterprise to national powerhouse.

In April of 2000, Gary Erickson turned down a $120 million offer to buy his thriving company. Today, instead of taking it easy for the rest of his life and enjoying a luxurious retirement, he's working harder than ever. Why would any sane person pass up the financial opportunity of a lifetime?

In his much-anticipated memoir, The Company I Keep: My Life in Beauty, Chairman Emeritus and former CEO of The Estée Lauder Companies Leonard A. Lauder shares the business and life lessons he learned as well as the adventures he had while helping transform the mom-and-pop business his mother founded in 1946 in the family kitchen into the beloved brand and ultimately into the iconic global prestige beauty company it is today.

Military Culture Shift presents the story of US military service members, their families, and the institution itself, through the lens of multiple generations, and the major factors impacting modern-day recruitment, retention, leadership, and wellness.

In Players First, John Calipari relates for the first time anywhere his experiences over his first four years coaching the Kentucky Wildcats, college basketball's most fabled program, from the doldrums to a national championship, drawing lessons about leadership, character, and the path to personal and collective victory. At its core, Calipari's coaching philosophy centers on keeping his focus on the players - what they need to get the best out of themselves and one another.

From career coach and founder of the startup Ladies Get Paid - the eponymous organization leading the fight for equality in the workplace - comes a “powerful call to action” (Reshma Saujani, CEO and author of Brave, Not Perfect) that provides the tools you need to strategically navigate the workplace, achieve success, and become a true leader.

No one in history has provoked more controversy than Napoleon Bonaparte. Was he an enlightened ruler or brutal tyrant? Was he an insatiable warmonger or a defender of France against the aggression of the other great powers? Was he kind or cruel, farsighted or blinkered, a sophisticate or a philistine, a builder or a destroyer? One thing is certain, if the art of leadership is about getting what one wants, then Napoleon was among history's greatest masters.

John H. Johnson, the remarkable entrepreneur who founded the Ebony publishing empire, tells the story of his success. The wealthiest African-American in the US today, Johnson shares his rags to riches saga, from the many obstacles that confronted him to his ultimate triumph.

Eddie Jones is one of the most successful sports coaches of all time. From coaching three different nations to Rugby World Cup Finals and with a winning record with England of nearly 80 per cent, Eddie Jones knows what it takes to lead and manage high-performance teams. For the first time, Eddie Jones shows just what it takes to be a leader in a high performance and high pressure environment and how these lessons can be applied to every walk of life, from coaching the U9 rugby team to leading a multinational organisation to simply doing your job better.

In 2001, General Motors hired Bob Lutz out of retirement with a mandate to save the company by making great cars again. He launched a war against penny pinching, office politics, turf wars, and risk avoidance. After declaring bankruptcy during the recession of 2008, GM is back on track thanks to its embrace of Lutz's philosophy. When Lutz got into the auto business in the early sixties, CEOs knew that if you captured the public's imagination with great cars, the money would follow.

Since the days of the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, no industry has made a greater global impact than Silicon Valley. And few individuals have done more to shape Silicon Valley than billionaire venture capitalist and entrepreneur Peter Thiel. From the technologies we use every day to the delicate power balance between Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Washington, Thiel has been a behind-the-scenes operator influencing countless aspects of contemporary life. But despite his power and the ubiquity of his projects, no public figure is quite so mysterious.

The complete rankings of our best - and worst - presidents, based on C-SPAN's much-cited Historians Surveys of Presidential Leadership. Over a period of decades, C-SPAN has surveyed leading historians on the best and worst of America's presidents across a variety of categories - their ability to persuade the public, their leadership skills, their moral authority, and more. The crucible of the presidency has forged some of the very best and very worst leaders in our national history, along with everyone in between.

Was it a typo when the CEO mandated that the organization "institutionalize incompetents"? If not, how did the company wind up institutionalizing incompetence instead? How to Work for an Idiot is still the confessions of a recovering Idiot Boss. After decades of writing and consulting, Dr. Hoover finally realized that many of the people he kept trying to "energize" and "enlighten" were, well, idiots. More importantly, he was an idiot for thinking he could change them. This new edition is bigger and better - and filled with even more idiots - than before.

For aspiring chefs, seasoned cooks, or anyone with an appetite for personal growth and leadership insights, Chef's PSA: Bad Sous, Good Chef is a must-listen. It's more than just a story—it's a journey towards becoming your best self, served up in a delectable narrative that will leave you hungry for more.

C T.’S LIFE stands as some rugged Gibraltar — a sign to all succeeding generations that it is worthwhile to lose all this world can offer and stake everything on the world to come. His life will be an eternal rebuke to easy-going Christianity. He has demonstrated what it means to follow Christ without counting the cost and without looking back. His simple life alone has affected missionary history, and through it C. T. forwarded evangelization to an extent that we cannot properly gauge.

From entrepreneur and celebrity hairstylist Jen Atkin comes a smart and spirited guide to finding your voice and creating the life and career you deserve - along with a behind-the-scenes look into Jen’s own wild and wonderful road to success.

Making Life Better is an inspiring story of character, integrity, ingenuity, and faith—values which form the foundation of an enterprise that has become one of the world’s leading recreational boat builders. By holding true to its founder’s mission of “building boats to the glory of God” through times of adversity and prosperity, Correct Craft’s leadership has provided customers with the industry’s best products and used the proceeds of those sales to make the world better for almost 100 years.

Many American Men & Women have used their martial arts platform to become some of the most influential thought leaders in life & business. The Elite Martial Artists in America compilation book focuses on life lessons, leadership, and business, all in one publication. Never before has there been a book to bring together a total life package. Our co-authors are experts in their own right based on their personal achievements in life, leadership, and business. Discover the hidden secret that separates one martial artist from another as they share the secrets to life, secrets leadership, and ...

Tony Wagner is an eminent education specialist: He has taught at every grade level from high school through graduate school; worked at Harvard; done significant work for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and speaks across the country and all over the world. But before he found his success, Wagner was kicked out of middle school, expelled from high school, and dropped out of two colleges. Learning by Heart is his powerful account of his years as a student and teacher.

Lutz is revealing the leaders - good, bad, and ugly - who made the strongest impression on him throughout his career. Icons and Idiots is a collection of shocking and often hilarious true stories and the lessons Lutz drew from them. From enduring the sadism of a Marine Corps drill instructor, to working with a washed-up alcoholic, to taking over the reins from a convicted felon, he reflects on the complexities of all-too-human leaders.