Winner of the gold medal in the 2025 Axiom Business Book Awards

Former Microsoft Executive and Fortune 500 CEO coach, Sabina Nawaz, delivers a practical guide for managers, at a time when managing is harder than ever.

This book explains why top performers inevitably turn into terrible managers when their behaviour, compounded by the power and pressure that come from climbing the corporate ladder, engenders toxic work cultures and saps everyone else's enthusiasm around them. The very traits that they believe have gotten them to top, may that be loose personal boundaries, perfectionism or a bullish communication style, when at the altitude of leadership, self-sabotage their efforts and that of their team.

Top Executive coach and former adviser to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Sabina Nawaz, does not advocate for a leadership personality transplant, or a lengthy journey in self-development. Instead, she introduces simple strategies that you can implement today that rail-guard against the common pitfalls of management. By managing pressure and collapsing distance, Sabina ensures top performers effectively manage others, navigate relationships and communicate effectively in every context.

About the Author

Sabina Nawaz is an Executive Coach for C-Suite talent and teams at Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, non-profits, and academic institutions around the world. A former executive at Microsoft, where she worked with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer directly, she understands the pressures and challenges leaders face.

Her work has appeared in publications such as the Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., and Fast Company.