Praise for Leading With Happiness
“Leading with happiness is compelling—it’s useful, well-researched, and downright fun to read. I especially loved Kjerulf’s insights about what “happy leadership” is and is not, and his stories and strategies about leading with happiness during tough times. Kjerulf’s advice “If you have their back, they’ll have yours” are words that every leader ought to live every day.”
– Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt.
“What an inspiring book. Every leader should read it and learn how to promote happiness for employees, customers, suppliers, investors, and even the leader him- or herself. That type of leadership has been integral to our success and I know it will boost your results too.”
– Garry Ridge, CEO WD-40 Company
“Alex has done it again. He has written a book that helps leaders get happier and better and, most importantly, helps their teams get better. And happier. If you follow the simple steps he lays out and adopt the worldview he suggests, I will lay a substantial wager your company will do well. Very well. Read this book. The read it again. And put the ideas into practice. You will be well served.”
– Srikumar Rao, TED speaker and author of Happiness at Work.
“We all have to develop and improve as individuals and organizations. The digital revolution of the last ten years has meant that many of us are available 24/7, which is not good for us. It’s time to combine the demand for ever-increasing efficiency with happiness, so we don’t burn out. This book will show you how.”
– Søren Lockwood, CEO SEB Pension Denmark
“This book is very inspiring and helps me prove that the work we do makes a lot of sense. Vega IT is all about happiness at work but I also love what Alexander wrote about customer happiness. I already made many notes on ideas I had while reading those sections of the book and I look forward to start practicing some in the future.”
– Sasa Popovic, CEO Vega IT Sourcing
“This is a book that the world needs. It will move you. It will excite you. It will inspire you. And it could well change your life”
– Henry Stewart, CEO of Happy
“As a leader, don’t I have enough on my plate? Now I have to concern myself with something as ethereal as happiness? Please Alexander Kjerulf, tell me it’s not true. Oh, but it is true and it may be the grandest truth of all. And … there is a secret waiting for you, the leader, inside this book. Happiness won’t add to your workload, but decrease it, it won’t add to your stresses, but lessen them. This book is not ethereal, nor is it’s subject. THIS is as real as it gets!”
– Rich Sheridan CEO, Menlo Innovations, Author Joy, Inc. – How We Built a Workplace People Love.
“This wonderful book gives you a blueprint for improving your business and the world. The evidence and the tools are right here in your hands. The rest is up to you!”
– Mikael Kamber, news anchor and author
“Alex knows what he is talking about when it comes to happiness. Productivity does not produce happiness; happiness produces productivity.”
– L. David Marquet,
“Here at Zappos, we believe that the key to happy customers and a growing bottom line is happier employees. This book is a great read for customer-centric companies.”
– Jamie Naughton, Chief of Staff Zappos.com inc.
What did you think of the book? Have any questions or need clarification? Add your comments here.
This book is such an excellent resource. It gives you bite size, scientific research to present to doubters and naysayers; and then gives you all the tools you need to make it happen!
What a great leadership book. I loved every minute of reading it. Even leaders who still are cynical about the concept of happiness, cannot ignore the large scientific resources and evidence that are mentioned in the book.
The book regards happiness from different perspectives: scientific, philosophical, psychological and neurological. If you don’t like all that background information, the book offers you to skip to page 48 for practical tips. Each chapter ends with a summary in tweets. The book starts at making your employees happy, but also mentions happier customers, vendors, shareholders, and eventually the whole world. I like that. I really believe this works!
Furthermore I love the enormous amount of stories of CEO’s, managers and others who practice the happiness approach to leadership. This book encourages every leader in the world to take action and to start Leading with Happiness right now!
The world needs more happiness.
Once again Alexander has written a book that make you reflect and think of how you act and how your mood and actions affects people around you.
What I especially like about the book is that everything is based on scientific evidences. There are a lot of references to research which proves that creating a workplace with happiness is good business, good for your health and, on the long term contributing to creating a better world.
Furthermore there are a lot of inspiration and good ideas in the book, not only for leaders, but for everyone who wants to create (more) happiness on their work.
Buy it – and get inspired. The world needs more happiness.
PS! Thank you for using us as the good example. We are very proud of being mentioned along with some of the best workplaces in the world.
What I liked most about Leading with Happiness
1. The Diagnosis: A lot of companies, teams and individuals within teams could be happier, and if they were, work would be more fun and productive. Kjerulf makes a good argument for this. He cites a few business cases and studies.
2. The book caused me to reflect on my current and past work situations and analyze them in terms of their emotional impact on me and my coworkers. Previously, I had thought about the work in terms of amount and quality of research, sustainability, growth, number of clients served, successful completion of creative and impactful projects. Although I found those work experiences fulfilling and engaging, I didn’t think of them in terms of “happiness.”
What I found problematic about Leading with Happiness
1. The Prognosis: Comparisons between Kjerulf’s assertions and my current and past work situations. Most of my work experiences have been “happy” (using the definition in this book) … until they weren’t any longer. My academic group was an enthusiastic, self-supporting research program until government regulations changed, funding for research dried up, work became decidedly unhappy (stressful and not worth the increasing effort) and the department disbanded. The consulting team I was later a part of energetically guided fortune 500 companies through management changes until clients’ needs abruptly changed with the economy, billable hours fell through the floor and partners dispersed. My current business is the most invigorating and collegial of any I’ve belonged to or consulted for, but I don’t know any staff member who would use the term “happy” — fulfilled is probably a better word.
2. The Prescription: I ran each suggestion for improving happiness in the book against interviews with colleagues and quick internet searches on team leader expectations, only to find that random acts of kindness or even what I consider basic civility (e.g., a morning hello) suggested in this book could be regarded as calculated acts designed to manipulated staff into positive alignment with the team leader or the leader’s leader. They could even be felt as intrusive, not by me, but by people with whom I work. Kjerulf doesn’t address issues I see daily: team members who want to be in a different job from the ones their in and there’s no opening for them; employees who bring problems from home to work; team members that were hired by someone else with other priorities; conflicts that, if solved, would leave one side happy and the other not.
Kjerulf is convincing that valuing positive emotions as part of a company’s reason for being is laudable and valuable. Likewise, he makes his case that most leaders don’t think about happiness (their own or anyone else’s) and everyone would be healthier and might even be more successful if they did. In short, he has the diagnosis right: most work places aren’t happy.
The prognosis — that unhappy workplaces will not perform as well as happy ones and not change the world for the better — is less convincing.
The prescription — becoming closer to direct reports, random acts of kindness, giving people more time away from work, and so on — is situational and is not always feasible or desirable.
Nevertheless, I would like to see more leaders turn their workplaces into ones like Kjerulf envisions.
Great book. Must to read for every leader in the world. Leading with happiness, happy leaders, happy employees, happy life 🙂
I knew this book was for me when I read that it was about a new kind of leader motivated primarily by doing good.
The book is a great read with a bit of something for everyone. If you like neuroscience and psychology, it’s here. If you like how-to, it’s here with four chapters dedicated to how leaders can create happiness for themselves, their employees, their customers, and their communities. Then there’s some help dealing with being happy when times are tough and how to overcome the challenges. Finally, there’s a call to action to help you on your happiness journey.
I found this to be a breath of fresh air and hope in a world so filled with toxic cultures, overwork, cheating, exploitation, and environmental destruction. I highly recommend Kjerulf’s well written tome on a subject the world needs to seriously consider.
I loved the book. It made me laugh, cry, feel inspired as well as thoughtful. I liked the many examples from all over the world from very different kind of companies. 30 years ago I was actually fired from a job for suggesting kindness at work. Therefore it is especially wonderful that the time has come when ‘Leading with Happiness’ as well as ‘Happiness at work’ is taken seriously by so many leaders around the world.
I found it very interesting how satisfaction and happiness create so different emotions in people thus very different performances. That was new knowledge to me though obvious upon reflection.
While reading the book at least 10 people came to mind to whom I wish to recommend reading the book. Only a few of these are leaders of title. My Personal Leadership was activated as I realized that I can begin today making a happy difference everywhere I go – I don’t have to wait till I get the ‘leader’ title 😉
This is the book I have been waiting for! The practical examples makes it easy to use in daily business. I have purchased examples for all my leaders and we will do a workshop i January and find out how we do it our way, so happiness becomes a more integrated part of the leadership in our company. Leading with happpiness is as choice and inspired by the book we have taken the decision, that this is how we want to lead.
By the way it´s a great christmas gift as well 🙂