Breakthrough Leadership: Winning Strategies From Amazon, Twitter, J.Crew, and Other Cutting-edge Companies

How did Dick Costolo, who’s never run a company nearly as big and complex as Twitter, rise to the challenge of being its CEO? How did Jenna Lyons dramatically change the culture of J.Crew, turning an also-ran into a cult brand? Why did GE empower frontline factory workers to operate as though they’re running the plant themselves.

Breakthrough Leadership provides these answers and more. For nearly 20 years, Fast Company has specialized in taking readers inside the world’s most successful and innovative companies and chronicling how they operate: what works, what doesn’t, how they solve problems. This collection features some of the magazine’s most instructive stories. We explore a range of organizations encountering obstacles familiar to any business, from startup skepticism to big-company inertia.

Inside, you’ll discover how Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk broke down the seemingly impossible task of building an electric-car company from scratch into a manageable series of steps; how Under Armour founder and CEO Kevin Plank outmaneuvered his Goliath competitors; and how Jeff Bezos kept innovating at Amazon, despite the company’s mammoth size and complexity.

Breakthrough Leadership is for anyone pushing for greatness in themselves and their organizations. In these revealing portraits of executives and entrepreneurs, we provide indispensable lessons for becoming a better leader.