Show Up To Win (how To Land The Leadership Role You Want)

To win top leadership roles, be as skilled at your job search as you are at your job.

Today, executive careers are more fluid than ever, and so is the executive job market. As an ambitious leader, you have no problem closing a deal or hitting your numbers, but knowing how to take the next step, the big step, will prove more difficult. To land a top job, you need to be clear about the distinct value you bring to the role you want. Yet the higher you rise, the harder it becomes to get honest opinions about your strengths and weaknesses.

In Show Up to Win, Kelly O. Kay and Jeff Sanders, partners at executive search and consulting firm Heidrick & Struggles, lay out a road map to help you win that top-level role and move into it effectively. Backed by a wealth of insights from real-life case studies and interviews, this straight-talking book shows what the job search looks like for today''s senior-level candidates, what companies are looking for in candidates for their top jobs, and how you can identify and best position yourself to win the role they''ve defined.

Drawing on more than three decades of experience and two hundred conversations per week with Fortune 1000 companies about executive roles, the authors highlight unexpected perspectives and counterintuitive advice on what differentiates the candidates who land the best jobs from those who are overlooked because they fail to distinguish themselves at the highest levels.

The result is a deeply practical and timeless exploration of how you should think about and navigate a high-stakes executive job search.

Advance Praise for Show Up to Win:

"Show Up to Win is candid and actionable. It helps leaders clarify their strengths, position themselves as the best candidate for the roles they seek, choose the right path, and confidently navigate each step of their career transition." — Ryan McInerney, CEO, Visa

"Kelly O. Kay and Jeff Sanders present a compelling, highly credible process for executives to evaluate the case for personal change at various points in their careers and make the most of their experience, insight, and desire for positive impact over the long run." — Blake Moret, Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

"Kelly O. Kay and Jeff Sanders have played a significant role in my leadership development and have been terrific partners in helping me find the strongest executive talent over the years. This is a must-read for senior leaders looking to advance their careers." — Judson Althoff, CEO, Commercial, Microsoft

"Kelly O. Kay and Jeff Sanders are the best in the industry! They''ve developed an amazing road map for senior executives navigating their next career challenge. This book delivers the clarity, strategy, and confidence needed to succeed in today''s challenging environment." — Ali Ghodsi, cofounder and CEO, Databricks

"Show Up to Win articulates something every great leader eventually realizes: a senior-level opportunity doesn''t always go to the most accomplished or most deserving candidate but to the one who wants it most." — Josh Kushner, founder and Managing Partner, Thrive Capital

"Kelly O. Kay and Jeff Sanders have created an invaluable guide to the professional and personal questions leaders need to ask—and answer—to build careers with lasting impact." — Robin Washington, President, COO, and CFO, Salesforce

Kelly O. Kay is managing partner, Global Enterprise Software and AI Practice at Heidrick & Struggles. He has served and led some of the biggest accounts in B2B software and specializes in senior go-to-market