Wisdom From The Top with Guy Raz

Back in the 1980s, Stephen R. Covey anticipated a new kind of leadership with his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It wasn't the table-pounding, charismatic kind of leadership, but an empathetic one, which prioritized listening and collaboration. Guy speaks with Covey's son Stephen M.R. Covey, who has played a central role in spreading his father's teachings around the world, and has also written several influential leadership books of his own.

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Carl Bass, a renegade and reluctant executive, took the helm at Autodesk and steered the company out of the global economic crisis. At one point, he was so sure it would fail that he was desperate to find a buyer. Instead, he put his own money at risk to try a whole new business model.

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Jeremy Zimmer was not supposed to be heading one of the "big four" talent agencies in Hollywood. As a child, he struggled in school and eventually dropped out of college to become a parking lot hustler, making money running schemes as a valet and spending nights partying. But that all stopped suddenly one day when he was violently attacked on the job. When he got back on his feet, he found new focus and began his improbable rise to the top of the talent agency world.

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Terry Lundgren, former CEO of Neiman Marcus and Macy's, has been instrumental in shaping the American retail landscape, but the road to bringing two notoriously competitive retail giants together wasn't easy. How he merged famous department rivals, double-downed on retail, and turned Macy's into the first nationwide department store in the United States.

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How a New Orleans native turned around a cruise company sinking from a public relations disaster... to one of the most valuable brands in its industry. When Arnold Donald took over Carnival Corporation and the nine cruise lines it operates, one of the biggest things he did was build a new leadership team. Seven of the cruise lines got new heads, including more women and minorities. He says that "diversity of thinking is a business imperative and a powerful advantage," and that you get better ideas and new growth opportunities when your leadership is diverse.

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Mixing business and social justice isn't a strategy most companies are willing to adopt, which is why Dan Schulman's actions as CEO of PayPal have garnered so much attention. In 2016, he canceled a plan for an operations center in North Carolina after the state passed its infamous "bathroom bill." Schulman champions his "employee first" strategy and has raised wages and benefits for PayPal's workforce. His leadership has proved that activism doesn't have to come at the cost of PayPal's bottom line.

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Beth Comstock is comfortable with change. In college, she wanted to be a doctor, but organic chemistry wasn't her strong suit, so she shifted to journalism. When journalism didn't work out, she started working in publicity. So, when GE bought NBC in 1986 right as Beth was starting her career in advertising, she was ready to adapt again. She worked her way to becoming CMO of GE and then, the company's first female Vice Chair of Business Innovations.

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For years, it was a secret: the family that owned Lego was actually losing money on the company. The man who built the company back up into one of the biggest toymakers in the world, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, reveals his controversial plan that led Lego back to profitability. It leaned on something that has always been Lego's strength: the creativity and passion of the children and adults who love to play with Lego.

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General Stanley McChrystal was born into a military family: three generations of men in his family were officers in the armed forces. He followed the family tradition and eventually rose up the ranks to become a General in the Army. While serving as the commander of Allied Forces in Afghanistan in 2010, he was forced to resign after he was quoted making disparaging remarks about President Obama. It was in the wake of this moment that General McChrystal learned the value of leadership.

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After one of the most deadly disasters in the history of space flight, Ellen Ochoa was a leader in NASA's recovery. She fixed the technical things that went wrong, but the most critical changes, she says, were human. Why she thinks it's important to make sure that naysayers always have a voice, and how to encourage employees to do something very difficult: disagree with the boss.

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