First Lead To Succeed: Leadership Before You Have a Title
Most leadership books start from the assumption that you already manage a team. First Lead To Succeed, the second title in the Leadership & Business series after New Manager To Succeed, starts a step earlier — for recent graduates and early-career professionals who want to build real influence, a strong reputation, and genuine leadership skill long before anyone gives them a title. The Chartered Management Institute's July 2026 report found young UK employees consistently say they would feel more confident in a leadership position with access to a formal mentor — this book is built to be the mentor most workplaces don't formally provide.
Influence Without Authority
The book opens with the distinction its whole approach rests on: the difference between authority and influence, and how to build the latter from day one, with no direct reports and no title to lean on. From there it moves into the workplace basics that actually shape how a new hire is perceived — etiquette, time-keeping, communication and resilience, the unglamorous things managers notice most but rarely say out loud.
Working With and For Other People
A full section covers managing up, giving and receiving feedback, and navigating office politics without becoming political — the working relationships that shape an early career far more than any single project does. Further chapters build the transferable skills underneath all of it: emotional intelligence, decision-making under incomplete information, ownership, and public speaking.
The Long Game
The closing section looks further out — finding a mentor, making real career decisions, and preparing deliberately for the day a title does arrive. Not abstract leadership philosophy: a structured, checklist-driven playbook for building real influence before you have formal authority.