Good People: The Only Leadership Decision That Really Matters

Entrepreneur Tjan (coauthor of Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck) delivers a well-intentioned but flimsy meditation on kindness as the primary goal and tactic of leadership. He stresses that, more than ever, employees are the most important assets of their employers. In an effort to figure out how companies can more actively foster compassionate cultures, Tjan conducted close to 100 interviews with people in leadership positions. Unfortunately, he doesn’t turn up any particularly noteworthy insights, but regardless goes on to fill the book with a repetitive discussion of the characteristics of goodness. Character and values matter more than competency, he asserts, and he names compassion, respect, kindness, patience, and connectedness as the linchpins of a successful business. There is space given to the best ways to put kindness into action—mentorship, etc.—but overall, a lack of direction makes this primer uninspiring. Agent: Jim Levine, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. (May)