Are your working relationships working against you? To achieve your goals and get ahead, you need to rally people behind you and your ideas. But how do you do that when you lack formal authority, or when you have a boss who gets in your way, or when you're juggling others' needs at the expense of your own?

Strategic initiatives are where the rubber meets the road when it comes to putting strategy into action, and leading a critical initiative may be the key to propelling your career forward. Yet managing a cross-functional team on a high-profile project can present a multitude of challenges and risks, causing even the most experienced manager to struggle.

Are you suffering from work-related stress? Feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and short tempered at work - and at home? Then you may have too much stress in your life. Stress is a serious problem that impacts not only your mental and physical health, but also your loved ones and your organization. So what can you do to address it? The HBR Guide to Managing Stress at Work will help you find a sustainable solution. It will help you reach the goal of getting on an even keel - and staying there.

Can you prepare a breakeven analysis? Do you know the difference between an income statement and a balance sheet? Or understand why a business that's profitable can still go belly-up? Has your grasp of your company's numbers helped - or hurt - your career?

We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the best ones to help you toggle between long- and short-term views, manage risk and innovation, and cultivate productive relationships with your staff and your board. This book will inspire you to: navigate the changing global business environment.

The path to your professional success starts with a critical look in the mirror. If you listen to nothing else on managing yourself, you should at least hear these 10 articles (plus the bonus article "How Will You Measure Your Life?" by Clayton M. Christensen). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles to select the most important ones to help you maximize yourself.

Help your employees help themselves. As a manager in today's business world, you can't just tell your direct reports what to do: You need to help them make their own decisions, enable them to solve tough problems, and actively develop their skills on the job. Whether you have a star on your team who's eager to advance, an underperformer who's dragging the group down, or a steady contributor who feels bored and neglected, you need to coach them: Help shape their goals - and support their efforts to achieve them.

Whether you're managing your first project or just tired of improvising, this guide will give you the tools and confidence you need to define smart goals, meet them, and capture lessons learned so future projects go even more smoothly.

Every organization has its share of political drama: Personalities clash. Agendas compete. Turf wars erupt. But you need to work productively with your colleagues - even difficult ones - for the good of your organization and your career. How can you do that without compromising your personal values? By acknowledging that power dynamics and unwritten rules exist - and navigating them constructively.

Written by team expert Mary Shapiro, the HBR Guide to Leading Teams will help you avoid the pitfalls you've experienced in the past by focusing on the often-neglected people side of teams. With practical exercises, guidelines for structured team conversations, and step-by-step advice, this guide will help you pick the right team members; set clear, smart goals; foster camaraderie and cooperation; hold people accountable; address and correct bad behavior; and keep your team focused and motivated.

When you're fumbling for words and pressed for time, you might be tempted to dismiss good business writing as a luxury. But it's a skill you must cultivate to succeed: You'll lose time, money, and influence if your emails, proposals, and other important documents fail to win people over.

Meetings. They hold such promise for moving your business forward but are rarely executed well. We all know what we're supposed to do to run meetings effectively, but we seldom do it. Why? Perhaps we think it's just not worth the time to clarify what we hope to accomplish, craft an agenda, handpick participants, issue pre-work, and send out notes. But preparation and follow-up is time well spent. This guide offers tips to make your meetings easier to prepare for, more enjoyable to run - and more productive.

Whether you're a new manager or looking to have more influence in your current management role, the challenges you face come in all shapes and sizes: a direct report's anxious questions, your boss's last-minute assignment of an important presentation, or a blank business case staring you in the face. To reach your full potential in these situations, you need to master a new set of business and personal skills.

Terrified of speaking in front of a group? Or simply looking to polish your skills? No matter where you are on the spectrum, this guide will give you the confidence and the tools you need to get results.

Whether you're new to running meetings or a seasoned executive with no time to waste, leading effective (and even pleasant!) meetings is a must. Running Meetings guides you through the basics.