“CEO Material” is now available everywhere!

Today is the launch day of my new book, “CEO Material: How to Be a Leader in Any Organization” (McGraw-Hill). It’s the culmination of years of work, and surprisingly bells aren’t ringing from the mountainside nor is confetti showering down from the skies. Instead the publisher and I are sending email blasts to our respective list of contacts, press releases and review copies are being mailed, and I’m twittering and responding to media inquiries. Other than that it’s pretty quiet. A little anti-climatic in fact after all the work it took to get to this point.

This is my eighth book so I know the drill, but this one is special, and based on early reviews - my best. You see I took a sabbatical from research and writing four years ago. At the time I had suddenly lost both of my parents: my best friends, business colleagues and mentors. It took four years and a great deal of encouragement from clients and friends who said, “you have so much to say and offer people, when are you going to write another book?”

One day my friend, John, a retired General Electric executive, said “you have to write about what to do at age twenty-two to be CEO by forty-two.” It hit me that this subject is what my life’s work is all about: What you need to put in place to make the big jobs happen.

His idea triggered renewed motivation and “put me back in the saddle”. I contacted my long-time editor at McGraw-Hill and proposed the book content around leadership necessary at any age, stage or area: Confidence, Craftsmanship, Communication and Co-worker collaboration. They decided the content read like “how to be a leader in any organization — and — real CEO material.” They too thought it was a good idea.

Now, I made all of that sound pretty simple. It wasn’t quite that easy but I’m taking editorial license here to spare you all the nitty, gritty. So today, the new book is being introduced and I encourage you to check it out. It’s based on my personal conversations with over one hundred CEOs who shared with me advice they give to people they mentor, their friends and even their children.

Whether you want to be a big company CEO, a C-level executive or start your own business, this book is about having integrity, taking charge, accepting challenges and making an ally out of everyone you work with. It’s your home-school guide to doing what must be done in order to make significant moves up the ladder.

If you buy it and you have a question you want to ask me, do, write to debra@debrabenton.com. I’ll personally write you back as I love to hear from my readers and help them on their personal journey.