What does it take to be a great leader?

The ultimate guide to managing your career - at every level, through every transition - The McKinsey Edge culls the best practices of an exclusive group of executives and consultants from McKinsey & Company, the legendary consulting firm that services 80 percent of the world's largest corporations. Drawing on his time as an engagement manager with McKinsey, Hattori presents rigorously selected, battle-tested tips that will give you the edge you need to up your game, raise your profile, and take your career to the next level-using a proven four-step program:

• Learn more effective ways to get ahead by making multiple self-improvements.
• Strengthen your skills of communication, connection, and understanding to influence your team and other stakeholders.
• Increase your productivity and performance using tools that work best for your specific environment.
• Push yourself further to focus your energies, renew your life, and revitalize your career with a new leadership profile.

Each section of this empowering guide includes precise strategies and hard-won advice that will help you tackle the challenges that are unique to each level of management. By applying these 47 principles to your own situation and workplace, you'll be able to change not only your personal mindset and managerial effectiveness but others' perceptions of you as a leader. You'll discover the best methods for dealing with clients, solving problems, motivating teams, and surpassing expectations. These are the strategies that have taken McKinsey's managers and trainers to the top of their fields - and this is the program that shows you how to take your career wherever you want to go.

Whether you're climbing your way up the corporate ladder, starting on the very first rung, or feeling stuck somewhere in the middle, The McKinsey Edge gives you the edge you need to take the next step and make it to the top.

Shu Hattori is a Japanese-British national with extensive experience in management consulting, start-ups, online social commerce, and news media.While at McKinsey & Company, he served in advanced industries, high-tech, and media in Asia, North America, and Europe for more than five years. Now, he runs a leadership development start-up. Shu earned an MBA from National Taiwan University with a full government sponsored scholarship and a bachelor's degree in commerce with distinction from McGill University in Canada.